Insects to Pests to Monsters

Are we turning Insects into Pests & Pests into Monsters ?

For over six decades the gullible farmer has been regularly bombarded with the triumphant pronouncements of the pesticide manufacturers, about their production of newer & more deadlier chemicals that would eradicated all pests and thus increase yields. Each new chemical, (an improved molecule) better than before…. ‘this one sure to eliminate the pest’. He has been pushed on to ‘the treadmill of chemical control’ and the belief that ‘salvation lies only at the end of a spraying nozzle’.
But these insecticides are not selective poisons; they do not single out the target species…. they successfully kill many beneficial insects… In most cases pesticide use actually –
1. increase the number of target pests
2. fosters new pests
3. creates demands for new or more toxic pesticides.

Scientists explain that, in many ways, pesticides free or liberate pests from control by their natural enemies:
1. The predator tends to suffer greater mortality in the long run than the pests because the latter are more resistant to insecticides.
2. Most natural enemies have longer generation times, are less abundant, and are slower to recover from the effects of poisoning than pests.
3. Natural enemies contract larger doses of pesticides since they forage over greater areas in search of food.
4. Lastly, herbicides often remove weeds that provide nourishment and refuge for beneficial insects & alternative food to certain insects.

We are neglecting the golden opportunity to prevent, even while we seek to cure/control. The single strategy of chemical control has become an economic disaster for the tea industry. What Claude Alvares had to say in the 1960s sounds so appropriate today “Once every potent chemical has been used & found wanting, there is simply no alternative but to return to traditional & less toxic means of controlling the insects that modern farming methods have turned into pests.”

The pests are becoming monsters. Look at the havoc Helopeltis is causing?! We see the current state of what disaster Looper is causing in Northeast India ( & two new species have landed up ?!! … were these just insects till yesterday ?) , Red Spider Mite ?!!
The problem is ever increasing; environment is being battered by all sorts of chemicals but insects are proliferating. And to make things worse our systems of control are wanting, equipment not appropriate and method of spraying is not targeting the pests.
1. Inappropriate coverage:
a. When spraying system is inappropriate –
i. the weaker members of the insect population are being weeded out. So in many areas and among many species only the strong & fit remain to defy our efforts to control them.
ii. as the dosages are not lethal to these that survive/escape they tend to build resistance.

2. Prophylactic Spraying:- We manage to kill predators/natural enemies more than the pests. The pests are not visible & so the spray is not targeted at the pests. With the natural enemies reduced the pests actually are aided in their build up.
Let us take a look at what happens to Red Spider Mite.
“ Why does the spider mite appear to thrive on insecticides? Besides the obvious fact that it is relatively insensitive to them, there seems to be two other reasons. In nature it is kept in check by various predators such as ladybugs, a gall midge, predacious mites & several pirate bugs , all of them extremely sensitive to insecticides. The second reason has to do with population pressure within the spider mite colonies. An undisturbed colony of mites is a densely settled community, huddled under a protective webbing for concealment from its enemies. When sprayed, the colonies disperse as the mites, irritated though not killed by the chemicals , scatter out in search of places where they will not be disturbed. In so doing they find a far greater abundance of space and food than was available in the former colonies. Their enemies are now dead so there is no need for the mites to spend their energy in secreting protective webbing. Instead they pour all their energies into producing more mites. It is not uncommon for their egg production to be increased threefold – all through the beneficent effect of insecticides.” – Rachel Carson (‘Silent Spring’)

It is a matter of historical record that not one, among the one million plus species of insects has been eradicated by man. On the contrary, they continue to proliferate.
“We must change our philosophy, abandon our attitude of human superiority and admit that in many cases in natural environments we find ways and means of limiting populations of organism in a more economical way than we can do it ourselves.” - Canadian entomologist, G.C. Ullyett in 1950 s.

“ In nature there is normally a balance between the 10 per cent “bad” insects and the 90 per cent “good” insects. When such a balance is established, there is no outbreak of pests and the plants in the area are healthy.
The bad ones , which are carnivorous, prey on the good insects that serve as their food. So long as there is equilibrium in their forces, there is no pest outbreak of any sort that would ruin crops and farmers’ harvests. The good insects harmlessly go about their business of pollinating plants and otherwise protecting plants by destroying the bad guys.
But destroy that equilibrium and you have pest infestation every time the bad bugs win. And they always win whenever insecticides are used to “eradicate” them.
For reasons now known to entomologists, the pests survive while the farmer-friendly insects are annihilated by poisons. Hence, the balance remains in favour of the pests under a poisoned environment. This condition is one when there is infestation and destruction of crops.” - Domigngo C. Abdadilla

Safety: How ‘safe’ are these chemicals ? The most determined effort should be made to at least reduce the usage of the plethora of chemicals that now contaminate our teas, food, our water supplies, and our atmosphere, because they provide the most dangerous type of contact – minute exposures, repeated over and over throughout the years.

“ A laboratory animal living under highly controlled and artificial conditions, consuming a given amount of a specific chemical , is very different from a human being whose exposures to pesticides are not only multiple but for the most part unknown , immeasurable, & uncontrollable. Even if ‘x’ parts per million of a chemical on the lettuce in his salad were ‘safe’, the meal includes other foods, each with allowable residues, and the pesticides on his food are, as we have seen, only a part, and possibly a small part, of his total exposure. This piling up of residues from many different sources creates a total exposure that can not be measured. It is meaningless, therefore, to talk about the ‘safety’ of any specific amount of residue,”

Leaving aside the question whether these legal residues are as ‘safe’ as they are represented to be, there remains the well-known fact that farmers frequently increase the prescribed dosages, use the chemicals too close to the time of harvest, use several insecticides where one would do,…

We need to re-look at the efficacy and commercial benefits of the excessive & often indiscriminate chemical usage. Are we really benefiting? Have the pests reduced? Have the yields increased? Let us seriously try to integrate into our system alternative and less toxic means of managing insects.



scroll down to a post in June 2006 on Looper Caterpillar control