|
|
 
|
Is anyone listening to signals from grasshopper invasion? (July 31, 2002 -- CropChoice news) -- The following story by Shepherd Bliss appeared on tompaine.com -- http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6046
Shepherd Bliss, D.Min., owns the organic Kokopelli Farm in
northern California and has contributed to 16 books.
The biggest grasshopper invasion since World War II has hit the
West this summer. Grass, crops, and pastures are being ravaged by
grasshoppers and Mormon crickets in unusually large numbers. Most
states west of the Mississippi have been attacked.
"They're even eating the paint off some of the houses," moaned
Nebraska farmer Robert Larsen. Outside Steamboat, Colo., 200
grasshoppers per square yard have been counted, reaching up to one
million grasshoppers per acre.
A grasshopper can eat more than half its body weight per day. Some
people feel like they are experiencing one of the Biblical
plagues -- as if they were being punished for some "sin."
When my family in Nebraska talks about grasshoppers, I think of
their cousins here in Northern California where I farm -- the
glassy-winged sharpshooter (GWSS) that threatens our lucrative
wine industry. The GWSS has already infested various southern
counties, and a few have come up here.
Is the arrival of such pests in large numbers and often to new
areas isolated incidents, or do they represent a pattern? Are
these pests the problem, or merely the symptom of a deeper
problem? What has happened to the predators that have historically
eaten such pests?
The media tends to cover the grasshopper invasion as resulting
from hot, dry weather and as drought-caused. Little is said about
the global warming that in all likelihood causes the drought and
probably will worsen, if current trends continue.
The sharpshooter has come North because of climate change; it
certainly will not be the last new pest to migrate our way. The
sharpshooters have historically thrived in warmer climates to the
south and perished in cooler weather. Even a slight rise in
temperature expands their territorial reach.
The main solution currently used for the grasshopper and GWSS
invasions is pesticides. But that merely treats the symptom, and
can have unwanted side effects that worsen the underlying cause.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture is foolishly
spending millions of our tax dollars to arm itself with chemicals;
the bugs will adapt and resist. The federal government recently
granted California another $28 million for its chemical war
against the dreaded beasts.
But the next major pest surely waits in the shadows, and the
short-term gain of eliminating some of today's pests by chemicals
poses very significant long-term risks by further disrupting
nature's balance -- polluting the soil, air, and water and killing
many beneficial insects, including those that would naturally keep
these pests in check.
Rather than treat the symptoms with a chemical-led assault, we
need a systemic approach. All creatures have natural predators.
When agribusiness plants a monocrop, such as wine grapes, and
saturates the fields with chemicals, it destroys those predators
and invites pests to a banquet. This only makes a bad problem
worse.
Sometimes answers and alternatives are right before our eyes, even
if policy makers and agri-businessmen don’t see them. Grass is one
of nature's treasures and agriculture's most valuable crops,
though its importance is often over-looked in favor of value-added
final products like wine. It’s also essential to a healthy food
chain. Spraying bugs on the grass leads to the accumulation of
toxins in the soil and plants, which not only moves up the food
chain to humans, according to scientists, but wreaks havoc on the
ecosystem.
We need to ask the larger questions and consider what the
grasshopper invasion symptom tells us about the health of nature
and our food system. What has happened to the birds and rodents
that usually prey on grasshoppers and the fungal diseases that
keep the numbers of insects down? Such smaller critters are
vulnerable to the pesticides used to kill unwanted insects.
Beneficial insects -- including bees, ladybugs, spiders and
dragonflies far outnumber pests and are also killed by pesticides.
The costs of spraying pesticides are much more than hiring an
aerial sprayer and buying the chemicals. If global warming
continues unabated and agribusiness continues with its chemical
addiction, grasshopper and glassy-winged sharpshooter problems are
likely to worsen. Ultimately, only the chemical companies will
benefit.
This summer’s grasshopper invasions are a wake-up call to not only
look at how chemicals continue to unbalance ecosystems and
contribute to climate changes, they should prompt policy makers
and business leaders to fundamentally rethink the way they’re
managing the food chain and ecosystems that support it. | |
