Just by digging a shovel of healthy soil, you can hold more living creatures than there are people on earth. Like the citizens of an underground city that never sleeps, tens of thousands of invertebrates, nematodes, bacteria and fungi constantly filter water, recycle nutrients and help regulate planetary temperature. pure.
But under fields covered with corn, soybeans, wheat and other monoculture crops, a toxic soup of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides is silently ravaging the world. this diversity.
According to new research published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, regulations currently ignore the harmful effects of pesticides on soil-dwelling species. The authors claim the study is the most comprehensive review ever conducted of how pesticides affect soil health – and that it should trigger immediate, substantive changes in the way the Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) evaluates the risks posed by nearly 850 pesticide ingredients approved for use in the United States.
The study was conducted by scientists at the Center for Biological Diversity (USA), Friends of the Earth and the University of Maryland based on a review of nearly 400 published studies including more than 2.800 experiments. about how pesticides affect soil organisms. The study evaluated 275 unique species or types of soil organisms and 284 different pesticides or pesticide mixtures.
The results showed that in just over 70% of all experiments, pesticides were found to harm organisms important to maintaining healthy soil – harms that have never been considered in safety assessments. EPA's entire system. Pesticide-intensive agriculture and pollution are factors driving the rapid decline of many soil organisms, such as ground-nesting beetles and bees. This is also the most important driver of soil biodiversity loss in the past decade.
However, pesticide companies and pesticide regulatory agencies in the United States ignored that research. The EPA, the agency responsible for pesticide oversight in the US, openly admits that somewhere between 50 – 100% of all pesticides applied in agriculture end up on the soil. However, to evaluate the harmful effects of pesticides on soil species, the agency still uses a single test species – the European honey bee (which spends its entire life above ground in boxes artificial) – to estimate the risk to all soil organisms.
In other words, the EPA is relying on a species that may never touch soil in its entire life to represent the thousands of species that live or grow underground – a fact that provides a disturbing perspective. about how the US pesticide regulatory system is set up to protect the pesticide industry instead of species and their ecosystems. Ultimately, pesticide approvals proceed without regard to how those chemicals may harm soil organisms.
Notably, as the principles of regenerative agriculture and soil health gained popularity around the world, pesticide companies jumped in to greenwash their products. Every major company today has web material promoting its role in promoting soil health, often advocating reduced tillage and cover crops.
As general principles, both of the above methods are really good for soil health and, if applied responsibly, are great steps forward. But companies know that these practices are often accompanied by increased pesticide use. When fields are not tilled, herbicides are often used to kill weeds, and cover crops are often chemically killed before planting. This “one step forward, one step back” approach is preventing meaningful progress to protect our land. Pesticide companies have so far been successful in pushing the “good soil” message because regulators have been unwilling to protect soil organisms from pesticides.
The long-term environmental costs of that failure cannot be ignored. Soil is one of the most complex ecosystems on earth, containing nearly a quarter of the planet's biodiversity. Protecting them should be a priority, not left until it is too late.
The study highlights the need to reduce the world's growing and unsustainable dependence on pesticide-intensive agriculture. And this will require EPA to take aggressive steps to protect soil health.
According to the Center for Nature and People