Page 28 - Spanish Insight - August 2019

Bug splat, pesticides

and male fertility

by Gary Miles
Now, I have a small allotment where I try
I used to be a very keen motorcyclist and my hardest to grow vegetables organically.
on a dry Sunday I would take my old Ducati Admittedly, I am at the foot of a very large
out on some twisty old roads for a hoon. learning curve and my efforts have been pretty
Occasionally, I would have to pull over to the unproductive. Take for example my tomatoes. What kind of chemicals are we talking about?
side of the road to remove a bug splat. A bug My yield is extraordinarily low and many of the Clothianidin (moderately toxic to humans),
splat is the remains of a flying insect smashed tomatoes have ugly stains on them and are metaldehyde (mildly toxic and a respiratory
at 100mph onto the visor of your helmet. horribly misshapen. The reason is, of course, irritant), chlorothalonil (moderately toxic,
Depending on the size of the insect it could that insects are burrowing into so many of my can cause kidney damage and cancer),
be quite dangerous, like having a chicken’s lovely tomatoes. Personally, I don’t mind a chlorpyrifos (acute toxicity, developmental
egg smashed into your face at high speed. misshapen tomato if it tastes great and mine problems in children),..... I could go on.
Most sensible riders carried a plastic bag with do, but if you are a commercial grower you
a damp cloth in it for the removal of said bug have to maximise yield and the vegetables Now each of these chemicals has been
splat. must have a uniform appearance in order to cleared for use in agriculture by the relevant
make a profit and satisfy the requirements august body in the European Union but has
of the large anyone looked to see what happens when we
supermarkets. put them all together?
And it seems Well it turns out that a study by the Technical
that the more the University of Denmark found that cocktails
supermarkets drive of pesticides can reduce sperm count and
down the prices, the cause malformation of genitals. A study in
more the farmers Assam India found that pesticides can reduce
have to spray to sperm counts by up to 30%.
make a living.
Research by The Soil Of course, this is only of concern if male
Association based fertility is actually on the decline. Well, guess
on Government what, it is!
data has thrown up If you like a good statistic this is a corker. Over
some truly shocking the last 40 years the number of viable sperm
figures. Forty years in men from the US, Europe and Australasia
ago the humble has halved! Halved? Yes halved?
onion was sprayed
with 2 different In the same period that pesticide use has
chemicals today gone up ten fold, male fertility has halved.
they are sprayed Now you could argue that lower fertility means
with 32. Forty years fewer babies, fewer babies means less food
ago wheat was also needed and less food needed means we
sprayed with just can make our farming less intensive but I’m
2 chemicals now guessing that the spraying will continue for a
we are up to 20. long time to come.
Of course, car drivers know the phenomenon And even the spud was only sprayed with 5
all too well. During the summer you had chemicals forty years ago but now they are Remind me to wash that lettuce extra carefully
to almost scrape the insect debris off your drenched with up to 30! will you.
windscreen on a weekly basis. I say “had to”
but it seems no more. I washed my car the
other day and there were almost zero dead
insects on the front of the car. Thinking about
it I realised that this had been the case for
some time, a drastic reduction in the number
of dead bugs on the front of the car. Time to
investigate.

A quick google revealed that I wasn’t the
only person to make the observation. An
article in the Telegraph explained that an
amateur German outfit called the Krefeld
Entomological Society has been monitoring
insect populations in 100 nature reserves in
Western Europe since the 1980s. They found
that, although there were annual fluctuations,
that in 2013 insect numbers started to
plummet by as much as 80%. Additionally,
managed bee populations have shrunk by a
third.
The reason – an increase in the use of
pesticides.
28 Spanish Insight September 2019
28 Spanish Insight September 2019