PANNA: Fighting Pesticide Dependence in a World Bank Project in China

Fighting pesticide dependence
in a World Bank project in China
A case study of community-based monitoring

by Jessica Hamburger and Marcia Ishii Eitemann

Download the PDF of this article.

According to Lu Caizhen of the Center for Community Development Studies (CDS), Chinese farmers have a saying that illustrates the dangers farmers face, "There are two ways to die in China: starve to death or be poisoned to death by pesticides." Ms. Lu reports that while farmers don't like using highly toxic pesticides, they know of no other way to control the pests that decimate their food crops.

These and other findings surfaced as CDS and PANNA conducted community-based monitoring in Hongxing, a village in the World Bank-supported Anning Valley Project in Sichuan Province, for PANNA's World Bank Accountability Project. The interviews, survey, and focus group discussions revealed that the Bank's Anning Valley Project was not providing the training in ecologically based integrated pest management (IPM) required by World Bank policy.(1) Two year later, the farmers in Anning Valley are still waiting to receive the training they need.

Women farmers in Sichuan Province at a farmer field school financed by the Sichuan government and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The participatory methods of farmer field schools have increased understanding of agroecological principles and reduced reliance on pesticides in farm communities.

World Bank fails to break cycle of chemical dependency

The July 2001 survey of 100 households in Hongxing revealed a cycle of chemical dependency and unintended consequences that frequently accompanies the intensification of agricultural production. When first introduced to assist in vegetable production for market in the 1980s, pesticide inputs brought increased yields and profits to Hong- xing farmers. However, the pesticides also killed off beneficial insects and farmers faced new pests that had previously been kept in check by predators and parasites. The entire system came crashing down in 1998 with the arrival of an exotic pest, the American leafminer. Impervious to pesticides, this insect devastated crops throughout the region and decimated farmers' incomes. Hongxing farmers began experiencing another consequence of pesticide use -- serious pesticide poisoning -- widespread symptoms including dizziness, nausea and appetite loss. In addition, the easy access to highly toxic substances resulted in several people using pesticides to commit suicide, including a ten-year-old girl who consumed pesticides after a family dispute.

The World Bank's policy on pest management, Operational Policy 4.09 (OP 4.09) requires World Bank projects and policies to reduce pesticide reliance and promote integrated pest management (IPM), and bans the use of Bank funds to procure the most hazardous pesticides.(2) The Bank has designated its pest management policy and other environmental and social policies as "Safeguard Policies," to ensure that Bank projects "do no harm" to people and the environment.(3) But when the Bank's Anning Valley Agricultural Development Project began in 1999, little was done to help the farmers break out of their pesticide dependency.

Despite the Bank's safeguard commitments, the Anning Valley project included funding to purchase pesticides, yet did not provide a plan for training farmers in ecologically based IPM, as the policy required.(4) Project documents also gave no indication that pesticides selected for the project would minimize impacts on human health, non-target species or the natural environment, another requirement of OP 4.09. The survey and group discussions confirmed early suspicions that the Anning Valley Project was in violation of OP 4.09 and was failing to reduce farmers' reliance on pesticides.

Farmers demand IPM training

The community-based monitoring in Hongxing immediately stimulated demand for alternatives to pesticides. "Once the farmers learned what IPM was and that the World Bank policy requires projects to promote it, they were eager to get IPM training," said Ms. Lu of CDS.

Ms. Lu invited two farmers from Hongxing Village to give presentations at a workshop organized by the World Bank at PANNA's request. "One of the important things about this monitoring project was that the World Bank heard the voices of the local people. The farmers told the World Bank officials that they don't like using pesticides. It costs them money, harms their health, poisons their animals, and kills the fish and shrimp in the river."

After hearing the farmers' stories, the Sichuan government made a commitment to convert the region into a production center for "unpolluted" fruits and vegetables, which often sell for a premium in urban markets. The World Bank project manager agreed that an ecologically-based pest management plan should be developed to help farmers decrease their dependence on pesticides. Almost two years later, however, World Bank assistance for this transition has not yet occurred. Hongxing Village, poised to reap the benefits of a healthier and more profitable way of farming, is still hooked on pesticides. This missed opportunity is a clear example of how the World Bank has let down farmers in developing countries by failing to implement its own policy on pest management.

Bureaucratic barriers stall progress

Initially, PANNA and CDS assumed there was a high potential for IPM in the project area because the Sichuan Department of Agriculture had a long history of collaboration with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in promoting IPM farmer field schools. Although IPM efforts in the province had focused on the rice growing areas of the Sichuan Basin, we were hopeful that the extension methodologies could be replicated for fruit and vegetable production in the mountainous regions of the Anning Valley Project

.Several times, PANNA and CDS attempted to forge links between the Sichuan Department of Agriculture and the Anning Valley Project, but met with resistance from the Chinese project director. PANNA then facilitated preparation of a proposal to the Global IPM Facility, which the Bank project manager in Washington, DC submitted on behalf of his Chinese counterparts.(5) The proposed project was designed to enable Chinese experts to learn about vegetable IPM on study tours in Vietnam and receive assistance from an international IPM consultant to develop a pest management plan.

In April 2002, PANNA staff met with the Bank project manager who had just returned from the project's mid-term review in the Anning Valley. He explained that the project management offices had presented him with an IPM plan, but that it was still too reliant on chemical pesticides. Unfortunately, the envisaged study tours and fielding of an international IPM expert were not conducted, largely due to administrative and bureaucratic delays at the World Bank.

In January 2003, PANNA learned that the Global IPM Facility and the Bank had decided to try once again to link the Anning Valley Project with regional and in-country expertise. Early in the year, the FAO Vegetable IPM Programme in Asia, which is expanding its work in China, offered to provide the Anning Valley Project with technical expertise in pest management. However, the World Bank's decision to transfer project responsibility to a new staff member at the Bank resulted in additional delays in communication and planning. Although the new project manager recently indicated interest in FAO's proposed IPM training, we are concerned that two full years after monitoring took place no substantive changes have been enacted in the Anning Valley Project and the affected communities continued to suffer the harmful effects of pesticide dependence. With the project nearing completion, PANNA and CDS are determined to see that the Bank follows through on its stated commitment and institutional mandate to provide Anning Valley farmers with training in ecological alternatives to pesticides.

Reforms urgently needed

As this experience shows, ensuring policy compliance in World Bank projects requires constant vigilance by communities and civil society. Communities affected by World Bank projects can take an active role in understanding, questioning, monitoring, evaluating and changing World Bank projects in their areas. The first step is for communities to understand precisely what a project is doing in their area and know that they have the right to all relevant information. Communities can then evaluate for themselves whether and to what degree these projects meet their needs, comply with their countries' own environmental regulations as well as with World Bank policies, and provide links and support for the communities' demands for change. (See box on PANNA's Tools to Support Community-Based Monitoring of World Bank Projects.)

It is equally important for the Bank to implement institutional reforms to create a transparent and accountable process that can make the monitoring worthwhile. Safeguard policy implementation is still weak due to lax project supervision and oversight. During our meetings with World Bank staff from 2001 to 2003, we recommended that the Bank develop a more consistent and systematic approach to policy compliance and staff accountability. We urged the Bank to report publicly on progress toward solving policy violations and to base staff performance reviews on policy compliance and actual project impacts, rather than the frequency, number and size of loans approved. Without these reforms, communities' efforts to monitor project impacts and provide the Bank with concrete recommendations for change will continue to be ignored, stalled or otherwise discounted.

To improve project quality and accountability, we believe the Bank should build independent participatory monitoring and evaluation into all its projects. This would require not only working with civil society groups to improve policy compliance, but also enacting basic changes in the way the Bank and governments administer their programs, oversee projects and supervise staff. Project managers would start with the assumption that effective projects require ongoing efforts to collect community feedback and adapt to community needs throughout the implementation period (see box on Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation Resources below). Ultimately, project managers, their supervisors and safeguard staff must act responsibly and swiftly to correct policy violations when found and take decisive steps to implement the project reforms called for by affected communities.

Marcia Ishii-Eiteman is PANNA's World Bank Accountability Project Coordinator. Jessica Hamburger is the Program Director of California Certified Organic Farmers

Notes

1. Details described in Lu, C., Partnerships to Improve Implementation of the World Bank's Ecological Pest Management Policy: Monitoring Pest Management in the World Bank-Funded Anning Valley Agricultural Development Project, Sichuan Province, China. Research Report #8, Center for Community Development Studies, 2003. www.panna.org/resources/wb.html.
2. OP 4.09 prohibits the Bank from financing extremely and highly hazardous formulated pesticide products belonging to World Health Organization (WHO) Classes Ia and Ib. It also prohibits financing hazardous formulated products (WHO Class II) if they are likely to be used by lay persons, or farmers without adequate training, equipment and facilities, a common situation in most countries receiving World Bank loans
3. According to the Bank, "the objective of these policies is to prevent and mitigate undue harm to people and the environment in the development process." http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ESSD/sdvext.nsf/52ByDocName/SafeguardPolicies.
4. Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Loan of US$90 Million and a Proposed Credit Equivalent to SDR 21.4 Million to the People's Republic of China for the Anning Valley Agricultural Development Project, Rural Development & Natural Resources Sector Unit, East Asia & Pacific Region, December 10, 1998.
5. The Global IPM Facility (Global Integrated Pest Management Facility) was created to support national governments in developing policies and training programs that promote IPM. It is co-sponsored by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, World Bank, UN Development Programme and UN Environment Programme.
6. Hamburger, J. and M. Ishii-Eiteman, The Struggle to Reduce Reliance on Pesticides in World Bank Projects: Can Community-Based Monitoring Lead to Improved Policy Compliance? Pesticide Action Network North America: San Francisco. 2003. Available at www.panna.org/resources/wb.html.
7. Cited in "Experience with Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation in Yunnan, China," reviews, Participatory Development Forum, http://www.pdforum.org.