PANNA: Sea of Pesticides Surrounds China's Organic Farms

China's widespread adoption of Green Revolution seeds and agrochemicals has boosted food production over the last 50 years, but this heavy reliance on pesticides has come at a huge cost. The world's most populous nation has become the world's largest pesticide user, with consumption averaging 250,000 tons of active ingredient per year from 1995-2000.(1) Chinese demand for pesticides is projected to reach 300,000 tons in 2005, then climb to 350,000 tons in 2015.(2) While chemical companies prosper, farmers watch pesticide expenses eat into their profit margins and pesticide-resistant insects decimate their crops. Yet rising from the sea of pesticides are safer, greener and even organic farms. Although "organic" is still a new concept in China, some farmers and government officials are beginning to see the potential to cash in on the growing domestic and global market for cleaner food.

The price of pesticide use

Hongxin Village in mountainous Sichuan Province has not escaped China's rising tide of pesticide use. In fact, residents of neighboring towns try to avoid buying produce from Hongxin because of its reputation for having dangerously high pesticide residues. These residue levels will have to decrease if local farmers are to compete in domestic markets, let alone the global marketplace they are facing now that China has entered the World Trade Organization. (See "China: Land of Vegetables and Pesticides,".)

According to a survey conducted by PAN North America and the Chinese non-governmental Center for Community Development Studies, pesticide and chemical fertilizer use in Hongxin has increased rapidly and steadily since 1980. (See "Pest Management and the World Bank-Funded Anning Valley Project,") Initially, rising chemical inputs brought increased yields and profits. However, the pesticides also killed beneficial insects and farmers found themselves facing more and more pests that had previously been kept in check by predators and parasites. Crop losses due to ecological disruption and pesticide resistance have become severe.

Cotton farmers in the northwestern region of Xinjiang have also paid the price of pesticide use and the resulting loss of natural enemies. This year, aphids and red spiders attacked over one million hectares of cotton fields. While drought and cold air coming from Siberia made the situation worse, the major cause of the severe pest outbreak was the use of highly toxic pesticides that killed beneficial insects.(3) A local official in Shihezi City expected losses to climb to US$85 million.

Pesticides also take their toll on human health and the environment in China. The health effects of China's excessive pesticide use are largely undocumented and existing reports contain widely varying estimates. A report published in 2000 reported pesticide poisoning affected from 53,300 to more than 123,000 persons each year in China in the 1990s.(4) The report attributes about half of the poisonings to pesticide use in crop production.

The same report stated that, in a "normal" year, about 300-500 farmers die due to improper use and overuse of pesticides in crop production.(5) However, experts in Yunnan Province believe that is an underestimate, since over 100 farmers are killed each year by pesticide poisoning in Yunnan alone.(6) The statistics are complicated by the fact that many farmers, especially women, commit suicide by drinking pesticides. Chinese death statistics indicate that 250,000 people committed suicide each year during the 1990s, and drinking pesticide was the most common method.(7)

Pesticide residues in food also result in poisonings, but the number of consumers poisoned by pesticide residues is unknown. A study of fruit and vegetables sold in Beijing revealed that 49% contained residues in excess of state standards for banned organophosphate and carbamate pesticides.(8) A similar study conducted in the cities of Kunming and Baoshan in Yunnan Province showed that 50% of the sampled produce exceeded maximum residue limits for methamidophos and isocarbo-phos, organophosphate pesticides that are strictly banned for use on fruits and vegetables by the central and local government.(9) Chronic effects of pesticides on the health of consumers are suspected, but little research has been done in this area.

Reliable statistics on the ecological effects of pesticide use in China are even harder to find. Pesticides, along with industrial pollution, have severely contaminated rivers and lakes, and threaten China's remaining biodiversity. Many farmers report having seen rivers once teeming with fish become barren over the last decade, while many economically valuable species of lake fish have become extinct.(10) DDT, known for its devastating impacts on birds, has been banned for agricultural use but is still used to control malaria-carrying mosquitoes in China.

The benefits of "backwardness"

Chinese farmers' awareness of pesticide risks is growing, but escaping from the pesticide treadmill, a cycle of increasing chemical dependence and escalating pest outbreaks, is easier said than done. That is why China's poor farmers in remote regions who could never afford to use pesticides in the first place are in the best position to meet the country's growing demand for organic food. Their soils are usually uncontaminated by industrial pollution and they often retain knowledge of traditional farming methods, such as crop rotation and intercropping, that naturally increase soil fertility and reduce pest infestations.

For the farmers of Wuyuan County in Jiangxi Province, isolation and what many government officials term "backwardness" turned out to be the secret of their success. The county is located high in the mountains at the head of six rivers, and factories are banned there. After the county's green tea passed the rigorous organic certification tests of the European Union (EU) in 1997, the county's tea company, renamed Wuyuan Organic Foods, secured EU certification for organic mushrooms, fungus and Chinese medicinal herbs. Their organic exports topped US$3 million in 2000.(11) Wuyuan Organic is now seeking certification for bamboo shoots, peaches and pears.

Export companies are largely responsible for developing approximately 200 Chinese organic products. Most organic products are exported to Japan, Europe and the U.S. but some are sold in China's big cities, where specialized supermarkets now stock everything from organic soy sauce to lychees.(12)

Some of the urban demand for organic produce is being supplied by China's version of a "back to the land" movement. Unlike a previous generation of city dwellers who were "sent down" to the countryside against their will during the Cultural Revolution, these new urban farmers are self-selected. One of these is Yu Huimin, a former aeronautical engineer in China's top research institute. She began by growing vegetables for Beijing's upscale restaurants, and now sells her produce in a supermarket in downtown Beijing. Most of her customers are Japanese businesspeople living in China, but she expects that will change as Chinese consumers' awareness of pesticide contamination grows.(13)

Already, food contamination scares have begun sparking consumer interest in products certified as safe. Last year, the Organic Food Development Center (OFDC), associated with China's State Environmental Protection Agency, began certifying farms based on the standards of IFOAM, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements. OFDC has certified tea gardens in remote areas of Anhui, one of China's poorest provinces.(14) Local tea producers' associations were created to make sure whole villages would go organic, and the Huang Ya Tea Association now handles their marketing in China's growing domestic market. OFDC products have met with some resistance in foreign markets because OFDC is not accredited according to the standards of the International Organization of Standardization (ISO Guide 65) and China does not have a national organic regulation. Some growers have sought to improve their access to foreign markets by working with internationally recognized organic certifiers, such as Organic Crop Improvement Association, Ecocert and the German certifier BCS.

The relatively clean soils of poor regions in western China may prove to be fertile ground for organic production, as China pursues a policy to "Develop the West." However, well-known production areas in highly developed regions in eastern China may choose to go organic as well to protect their reputations. When the Shanghai branch of the State Quality Inspection Bureau released a study of 61 types of China's most famous teas, 19 of the teas did not meet the lowest quality standards for metal and other chemical contents, 13 of them because of high levels of lead.(15) The company producing China's famous Dragon Well tea saw sales plummet as a result, according to Chinese news reports. Around the same time, new EU regulations reduced pesticide tolerances for tea by 100 times, effectively excluding half of China's tea exports to the EU. This rejection caused more than US$125 million in losses to tea farmers in Zhejiang, China's main tea-producing area.(16) Zhejiang officials responded by setting up their own organic certification program. Although their organic scheme may not be recognized abroad, it may help reduce contaminants to levels that will boost domestic sales and allow export.

As organic demand grows, so will the incentive for conversion from chemical-dependent Green Revolution techniques back to ecologically based farming systems. Organic conversion will be difficult because most communities have lost their traditional agricultural knowledge, and China has few experts or technical staff specialized in organic farming who can train them. Nevertheless, some pioneers are forging ahead. For example, the Nanjing-based Organic Farming Development Project, which cooperates with experts from agricultural universities and local government, began re-introducing techniques such as intercropping, biological pest control and green manure to farmers in Yuexi, Anhui Province in 1998.(17) Three years later, farmers from one of the villages had organized China's first association of organic kiwi growers to provide technical support and jointly market their products. They have developed their own requirements and internal documentation system, and farmers who participated in the project since its inception have now received organic certification.

Many paths to pesticide reduction

Southwest China's Yunnan Province, home to half of all of China's plant and animal species, has made a special effort to control pollution and pursue a "Green Economy" that is compatible with nature conservation and tourism. However, officials and farmers are undecided about whether to pursue sustainable agriculture by embracing international organic standards or by adopting Chinese Green Food or wugonghai ("unpolluted") standards. The Chinese Green Food system has two levels: Grade A for food produced without harmful chemicals, and Grade AA, which has become more and more similar to international organic standards over time, but is still not widely accepted abroad. Part of the resistance to accepting Green Food as organic comes from the fact that government agricultural agencies certify and market Green Food, conflicting with the principle of third-party monitoring. Wugonghai was an informal term used to market relatively clean food until China's Ministry of Agriculture recently promulgated official wugonghai standards.

By the end of 1999, the Green Food Office in the Yunnan Agriculture Bureau had labeled 28 products from 18 enterprises as "green," meaning that they are safe and healthy. The province currently has seven organic producers. Although the public does not necessarily trust the Green Food label, Kuang Rongping, Director of the Yunnan Entomological Society, believes the Grade A Green Food standard is more practical for some parts of China, at least for now. In a presentation to the Yunnan People's Consultative Conference, he advocated that the government promote organic farming in relatively clean and natural areas and promote Green Food in more polluted areas, such as the suburbs of big cities.

Tang Baokun, a vineyard manager in Yunnan, is hedging his bets by experimenting with both organic and Green Food approaches on different plots of land. Mr. Tang lives in Mile County, an "Eco County" in Yunnan Province. China's Ministry of Agriculture set up one hundred Eco Counties across the country to encourage integrated agriculture, forestry, energy use and environmental protection in rural areas.(18) Mr. Tang received a subsidy from the provincial government to convert to Green Food production, and expects to get certification for his 80 hectares by next year.

At the same time, Mr. Tang has heeded the advice of the Yunnan Environmental Protection Bureau, which encouraged him to choose organic rather than Green Food certification for his next venture. The environmental bureau's certification system meets international standards, which are increasingly important because of China's recent entry into the World Trade Organization. Mr. Tang has leased an additional 330 hectares of land on a hillside far from any polluted areas, where he plans to construct an organic vineyard.

Even for farmers who don't go organic, economic and environmental gains from reduced pesticide use are well within reach. Studies of farmers who received training in ecologically based integrated pest management show that these farmers developed an understanding of the rice ecosystem, and are able to use their knowledge to maintain yields and increase profits while reducing their use of pesticides.(19) (See "Participatory IPM in China.")

Sometimes simple changes in farming practices can enable farmers to drastically increase yields without using chemicals. For example, researchers in Yunnan Province found that intercropping sticky rice with standard rice varieties dramatically decreases the incidence of rice blast, allowing farmers to stop using fungicide within two years.(20) The experiment covers 100,000 acres and involves tens of thousands of farmers. In another success story, researchers helped poor farmers in Shandong and Anhui Provinces increase sweet potato yields as much as 30% to 40% without additional fertilizers, pesticides or genetic improvements. The crops were produced by extracting tiny bits of disease-free plant material from infected plants and re-growing them under sterile conditions. Farmers in Shandong and Anhui currently grow about 30 million tons of virus-free sweet potato annually on 800,000 hectares (1.97 million acres).(21)

Back in Hongxin Village, farmer Lai Zhongshan said he wished he could reduce his pesticide use. "If we could get a higher price for our vegetables, maybe we could afford to switch to ecological methods," he said. Mr. Lai may not have long to wait. The Sichuan government has decided to turn the local pesticide crisis into an opportunity by converting the region into a production center for "unpolluted" fruits and vegetables. A few years from now, Hongxin Village may be reaping the benefits of a healthier and more profitable way of farming.

Jessica Hamburger is a Project Coordinator at PAN North America.

Notes

1 State Report on Environmental Status and Lu, M. et al. Pesticides Ecology, Beijing: Chinese Environmental Science Publishing House, 1993, pp. 1-8. (In Chinese)

2 Agrow: World Crop Protection News, February 4, 2000.

3 "China's Biggest Cotton Zone Hit by Pests," Xinhua, September 13, 2001.

4 Huang et al. "Farm Pesticide, Rice Production, and Human Health. CCAP's Project Report 11, Beijing: Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Project Report submitted to EEPSEA, Singapore, 2000.

5 Ibid.

6 Zhong Lun. Report on Establishing Systems for Controlling Pesticide Residue in Vegetable, Kunming: Yunnan Entomological Society, 2001, at http://www.greenactionyes.org/greenact/web/title_e/report/report_e.htm.

7 "Suicide by Pesticide," Beijing Environment, Science and Technology Update, March 30, 2001, downloaded from U.S. Embassy in Beijing Web site http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/sandt/estnews0330.htm.

8 Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences report, posted on China Pesticide Network Web site, http://www.chinapesticide.gov.cn.

9 Newsletter, Yunnan Entomological Society, Kunming, Yunnan, China, 2001.

10 Becker, Jasper, "Putrid lake proof environmental policies have failed to hold water," South China Morning Post, October 15, 2001.

11 Gilley, Bruce, "China: Cashing in on the Organic Trend," Far Eastern Economic Review, February 22, 2001.

12 Gilley, 2001.

13 Smith, Graeme, "‘Industrial Peasant' Yu Huimin Goes Back to the Earth," City Weekend, August 30-September 12, 2001.

14 Hein Mallee, personal communication, Ford Foundation, Beijing, Sept. 2001.

15 Gilley, 2001.

16 Ma Jun, "Seeds of organic food industry slowly take root," South China Morning Post, May 22, 2001.

17 Pennarz, Johanna, "Conversion to Organic Farming: A Project Approach from China," ILEIA Newsletter, December 2000.

18 "Eco-environmental Protection in China's Agricultural Production," People's Daily, May 16, 2001.

19 Mangan, James and Margaret S. Mangan, "A comparison of two IPM training strategies in China: The importance of concepts of the rice ecosystem for sustainable insect pest management," Agriculture and Human Values, 15: 209-221, 1998.

20 Zhu, Y. et al., "Genetic diversity and disease control in rice," Nature, 406:718-722.

21 Boosting Sweet Potato Production in China, news release, Future Harvest, Washington, DC, http://www.futureharvest.org/growth/china_sweet.bkgnd.shtml.