BY DONNA WESTFALL
CREDIT TO “EAT LOCAL GROWN” AND MARCH AGAINST MONSANTO
Can you pronounce any of these: acephate, dichloropropene, diuron, fluometuron, pendimethalin, tribufos, and trifluralin? Do you even know what they are? The are pesticides used on cotton.
The United States EPA considers 7 of the top 15 pesticides used on cotton as “possible, likely or probable” human carcinogens and noted how they persist in the soil, water and environment to cause harm.
Hall of Famer, singer Neil Young, was quoted as saying that cotton is second for most pesticide use of all crops and that it uses 25% of all of the petrochemical based pesticides, fungicides and herbicides globally.
Go to www.neilyoungcom/news/ and read his August 1st posting, “Today, I have taken the steps to remove sales of non-organic t-shirts and other products that damage the Earth from my concerts and my web stores. I vow to speak up & to do what I can to PROTECT EARTH.”
Genetically modified cotton is coming under fire in the United States after a massive superweed outbreak of amaranth resistant to the herbicides sprayed on the crops led to the request of the authority to re-use a banned, highly toxic herbicide on up to three million acres in Texas; the EPA has since denied the request.
