Poisoning for Profit
-Daniel Faber
Central America’s Cash Crop
Cotton is the main export.
Oligarchs buy up family farms for
cotton production.
Coastal areas
deforested for farming
Pesticides like DDT
used to eliminate disease
carrying mosquitoes
Ecosystem Destruction
Guatemala: Coastal Lowlands were all
rainforest before cotton.
Hundreds of thousands of acres
destroyed for cotton
Forests, habitats, and
peasant villages
removed for roads
and fields.
World Bank loans
made it possible.
Cotton Elite
1960: 25,900 acres for Cotton.
1977: 535,990 acres for Cotton.
15 families control nearly 50% of land
by 1980.
Peasants could rent land under Elite’s
instruction
Encouraged to maximize profits,
regardless of soil deterioration and
poison.
Pesticide Use
Former WWII chemical weapons
converted to pesticides.
Methyl Parathion: Nerve gas
used in concentration camps.
Hundreds of deaths and
Illnesses among farms
workers and their families.
Praised by cotton growers as an
‘Atomic Bomb’ against pests.
The Pesticide Treadmill
Pests develop resistance to chemicals.
Declining yields, increasing costs,
falling profits.
Cotton yields down 30%
from 1965-1969, land
used for cotton down 43%.
Half of production costs
spent on pesticides.
Monsanto makes many.
Contamination
Falling cotton profits.
Diversification into corn, sugar,
and cattle.
El Salvador, 47% of cotton land put
into corn production, another 30% for
cattle.
Cattle graze on land contaminated
with pesticides.
Banned? Not There!
DDT, Endrin, Phosvel, to name a few.
‘Phosvel Zombies’
Phosvel exported to
Central America as part
of
foreign aid programs.
40% of pesticide exports
sent to Central America,
most banned in the
United States.
Poisoning the Land
DDT Imported 29,000 kg in 1974, and
561,000 in 1976, 20 times more.
El Salvador: DDT use increased
threefold in 1977.
El Salvador is the size of
Massachusetts.
The equivalent of 2,400
pounds of pesticides dumped
on every square mile of
cotton land over the mid-70s.
Doesn’t it Go Away?
Eventually. The half-life of DDT is 20 years.
Easily absorbed by fat tissue.
Pesticide applied by aircraft. 50-75%
misses crops, and blows away.
Airborne residue discovered at the upper
Great Lakes in Canada.
Poisoning the People
Great pressure not to report.
Children under age 16 account for
20% of poisonings.
Workers live right next
to fields, so dustings
reach them.
When spraying, most
barefoot and without
proper protection.
Poisoning the People
Workers stir chemicals with hands.
It’s ‘faster’.
Warning labels often absent.
200,000 poisonings occured during
the 1970s.
Mothers found with 185 times more
DDT in breast milk than WHO deems
safe.
Poisoning the World
Cattle graze on former cotton land.
Milk has DDT levels 90 times above
U.S. standards. We import anyway.
FDA tests less than
1% of imported beef.
NA birds who have their
winter home in Central
America get infected.
Conclusion
Pesticides imported from U.S.
Illegal there, so send em down.
Pesticide treadmill.
Kills pests at first.
Pests become resistant after 3-4 years.
Pest resurgence. Disease outbreak.
Stronger Chemicals used.
Rinse and Repeat.