To Feed the World, Stop Fighting Against Pesticides

The world’s food supply is straining to keep up with the population increase. Governments need to embrace modern solution to address this threatening problem. As nations struggle to address the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation, soaring energy prices and breaks in the supply chain, this problem looms large in the background.

Many on the left preach the absoluteness of science. They speak of the need for people to be vaccinated against Covid-19 regardless of their personal situation. They endlessly tweet about global warming in catastrophic terms, disregarding the improvements. Yet, when it comes to food security and the need to use science to increase the production of food to prevent starvation in underdevelopted nations, they resist because of some misgivings and confusion about the technology used to increase the production of food.

There is a worldwide food shortage right now. As CNN reported on November 5, 2021, “world food prices have surged to the highest level in more than a decade, driven by robust demand and lackluster harvests, according to the United Nations.” The combination of increased demand, smaller supply, and increasing production costs are causing an intractable crisis. According to the U.N., nearly 40% of the global population cannot afford a healthy diet and by 2050 approximately 70% more food will be needed to feed the population.

This is a crisis in need of a solution.

As usual, technology is the answer. Modern agricultural technologies such as genetic modification, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides are increasing productivity on land already in use. Some on the left push back on these technologies despite the effectiveness and resist implementation of policies favoring responsible use of the technology in order to feed people.

There is a false assumption that these technologies, specifically newer pesticides, are hazardous. This mistaken assuption is the result of dangerous misinformation that can lead to consequences far greater than the use of pesticides. A form of pesticide has been used by farmers to protect crops dating back to the earliest known civilization. If farmers can’t control weeds, insects, and disease from destroying crops using pesticides, only the people who purchase food will suffer from the increased prices.

Chemical innovation led to breakthroughs which decreased pesticide toxicity and reduced the amount applied. This allows more crops to successfully reach the supermarket and end up in your fridge. If you remove pesticides from the available tools for farmers over misinformation, you will have the adverse consequence of mass starvation. Pesticides have become a necessary element of any strategy to grow large amounts of crops which remain reasonably priced. In fact, organic farmers are among the biggest users of pesticides — however, they do not utilize the newest technologies and are not particularly effective or efficient. These farmers use copper sulfate which is more broadly toxic and has to be used in far greater quantities than its more efficient counterparts.

For those concerned about the adverse effects of climate change, without pesticides that increase crop yields on land already in use, either more land will have to be cleared resulting in increased carbon emissions or global hunger rates will grow. The amount of greenhouse gas emitted from agriculture pales in comparission to clearning new land in places like the rainforest. The people fighting climate change choose to be ignorant of the fact without the use of pesticides more acreage will need to be used, resulting in a greater amount of carbon emissions. If pesticides are eliminated, clearing land for more crops will be necessary to make up for the loss of crops to pests in order to replace the loss and meet the demand. Climate change activists are hurting their cause if they fail to embrace the science behind the effectiveness of pesticides.

It is time for people to abandon the policy war on pesticides because they are huring food security. Farmers, agriculture, and agtech companies need to do their part to reverse the current narrative on pesticides and other modern technologies which work to feed people around the world. Congress and other policy makers need to invent ways to promote new initiatives and encourage stakeholders to pursue innovation in agriculture.

Peter Mihalick is former legislative director and counsel to former Reps. Barbara Comstock, Virginia Republican, and Rodney Blum, Iowa Republican.