Vol.12_No.2 - Pesticide Alternatives Lab - Michigan State University

Spring 2003 Resistant Pest Management Newsletter Vol. 12, No.2Letter from the EditorIn 2001 the world's pesticide market exceeded $34billion while in the US it is projected to have exceeded$11 billion. It has been estimated by Pimentel et al.(2002) that pesticide resistance surpasses $1.4 billionin environmental, ecological, and human impact costs.What are some of the features driving resistancedevelopment in North American societies?Consumerism certainly drives much of the globalismand free-market decisions in North America today. Bilateraltrade agreements and falling tariffs have openedthe way to new markets and products. Both pesticideregulations and the enactment of the Food QualityProtection Act (1996) are seen by some as emergentproperties of consumerism and the environmentalmovement. Consumers demand blemish-free fruit andvegetables. Federal and state regulations requirewholesome and labeled products as well as numerousother quality-related characteristics. Thus,consumerism in its myriad forms has swiftly overtakenoutdated forms of production, marketing, and sales ofagricultural products. Consumers have power in themarket place today, and their power is partiallytranslated into increased pressure toward "perfect"product quality that can only be delivered throughincreasingly intense pest management systems.The environmental movement has also fosterednew awareness and a drive toward new legislation andregulations targeting pesticides in agriculture andhealth protection. Environmental concern has also beenlinked to the consumer movement in western societiesand together they are global in scope, extending eveninto third world countries. Environmentalism transectsthe demographics of western societies and stronglyaffects the regulatory policies in the U.S., Canada, andMexico. It is projected that environmentalism willextend well into the twenty-first century.Environmentalism and consumerism together haveseveral pest management and resistance managementimpacts. The rise of global marketing, consumerism,and environmentalism together medicate much ofwestern society's modern conscience. First, NorthAmerican societies source products globally andtransport these goods rapidly into the country. Second,more than 60% of North American pests historicallyhave been introduced, with new introductionsoccurring almost weekly. At this rate, will NorthAmerican societies eventually import most of theecologically compatible global pest species despite ourphytosanitary barriers?The Scope of Resistance in North AmericaEmerging with consumerism on a global scale,market access through non-tariff phytosanitationbarriers has become a gauntlet that every entrepreneurmust overcome. Both the introduction of invasivespecies and phytosanitation requirements dictateadditional pesticide applications and potentiallyaccelerate resistance selection.Within this context is resistance, where thegenetic-based adaptation of pests to man's effort tocontrol them has become more and more important asglobalism, consumerism, and market access concernsdrive pesticide use. From this point of view, it is notdifficult to believe that resistance problems will plagueagriculture and human and animal health protection forthe foreseeable future.As editors, we represent applied ecology andinsect toxicology. In our view, it is difficult to lookpast the inference that resistance is a symptom of adysfunctional ecosystem. That is, agriculturalproduction systems are often defined as disruptedecosystems (Southwood, 1978). Resistance canlogically be viewed as a symptom or indicator of anecosystem that has been disrupted beyond its naturalequilibrium, resulting in an ecologically negativeoutcome. Therefore, resistance is a consequence ofpesticide overuse, or selection susceptibility genes in autilitarian and reductionist sense.This perspective could also be adopted in humanand animal health protection where the problem withanti-microbial resistance has surfaced in the popularmedia repeatedly. It is with some irony that mediawould focus on antibiotic resistance and human healthwhile less immediate resistance issues withinsecticides, herbicides, and fungicides in foodproduction rarely surface. Insecticide, acaracide, andfilaricide resistance is also a critical issue for humanhealth protection in North America but the mediasurprisingly overlooks it too. The media even ignoresefforts by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC)and the World Health Organization (WHO) to trackvarious disease vector resistance development in theAmericas, Asia, and Africa. With the recent mediaattention in North America on the introduction of themosquito-vectored West Nile Virus into suburban andurban population centers, one might expect a somewhatbroader articulation of the fragile nature of humanhealth protection, including vector resistance. A furtherirony, some might note, is that North American mediain concert with environmental and consumermovements would skewer certain insecticide use like3