Colorado potato beetles will be among the first to face a new class of pesticides (Image: Nigel Cattlin/Science Photo Library)
Editorial: Reasons to welcome gene-silencing pesticides
THE environmental movement is often traced back to Silent Spring, the 1962 book in which Rachel Carson documented some of the harmful effects of pesticides on people and animals, and called for stricter controls. Half a century on, the book remains controversial but there is now no doubt that however useful pesticides are, they cause an immense amount of damage too.
Pesticide poisoning is a major health problem. Every year thousands of farm workers die of pesticide poisoning and millions more suffer severe effects, mainly in developing countries. A survey in Nicaragua last year concluded that 2 per cent of the country’s adult population suffers pesticide poisoning annually. This kind of finding is not unusual.
Then there are the environmental effects. Many pesticides are toxic to a wide range of animals, and dose is often the only factor that restricts the killing to insects. They kill beneficial insects alongside harmful ones, which means that once farmers start using pesticides they often have to keep using them because there are fewer natural predators to help control pest populations. Some pesticides persist in the environment for decades and accumulate up the food chain. Plants genetically modified to produce biodegradable insecticides such as Bt are one way to solve these problems, but this approach does not work for all pests and there is intense opposition to GM crops in many countries.
Now, however, researchers are working on an entirely new generation of pesticides, one that …
