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AGRICULTURE AND
CHEMICAL RISK The main forms of agriculture can be classified
as follows:
·
subsistence agriculture: cultivations of annual plants, on land
that is cleared occasionally by cutting or burning of volunteer
plants, and breeding of animals in the pasture, with totally
empirical cultivation and breeding techniques;
·
traditional (or classic) agriculture: cultivation
of herbaceous plants in rotation or fruit trees in fields
set up with irrigation canals or having buildings (houses,
stables, etc.); breeding of animals in the pasture for the
production of meat, milk and wool and in stables for field
work; transformation of agroindustrial products (butter,
cheese, wine, oil) and production of handmade items (wool
fabrics, furniture or wood utensils); the cultivation techniques
are directed at the fertility of the soil and they foresee
crop rotation, the spreading of animal manure in the fields
and the use of fertilizers: these technical innovations,
prepared by the farmers assisted by farming techniques shaped
in agriculture schools, are called “neutral”, because they
do not alter the relationship between land, capital and
work, and/or “yield increasing”, since they increase the
unitary productive yields of the crops;
·
transition agriculture: traditional agricultural systems in which
the work carried out by humans and animals is progressively
replaced by machines, first in the cultivation operations
that require greater energy (working the soil) and then
in other operations (manurings, sowings, weedings, antiparasitical
treatments, harvesting of products): these are “non neutral”
technical innovations, because they alter the relationships
between capital and work, and/or “labour saving”, which
in part cause workers to be driven out of agriculture and
in part react to the attraction of agricultural workers
by industry and other economic activities; the rarefying
of labour and the technical-economic difficulties for installation
of modern industrial systems drive out the agroindustrial
transformations from agriculture, which are transferred
to the industrial sectors;
·
technological agriculture: the growing mechanization of crops and
of herds causes, on the one hand, the simplification of
crop rotations and the elimination of the most difficult
crops to mechanize or of those that are less profitable
and, on the other hand, aid the joining of biological (hybridisation
and/or genetic modification of plants), chemical (chemical
synthesis products aimed at specific requirements of the
growing cycles of plants) and mechanical (specialized machinery)
innovations in “technological packets” produced by the sectors
upstream (farm supplies) from the agribusiness system; agriculture
tends to specialize (cereal growing, vegetable growing,
fruit growing; breeding of dairy cows or calves for meat
production) and to integrate itself with the activities
of farm machinery leasing and/or with the sectors downstream
from the agribusiness, i.e. with industry and with processing
and distribution), giving rise to the so-called “agroindustrial
“production lines”;
·
industrial agriculture: technological packages that are ever
more innovative (thanks also to biotechnologies) replace
land resources with artificial productive systems, programmed
and managed also through use of computers and telematics
(see the hydroponic growing of vegetables in beds inside
hothouses) and/or breaking the tie between fodder production
and animal breeding (breeding “without land”); industrial
agriculture also includes vegetable and animal productions
aimed at the production of hormones, medicines, proteins,
sweeteners, etc. .
·
agriculture for typical products: the reduction of the prices of generic
agricultural products, due to the reduction of the production
costs caused by the diffusion of technical progress, directs
the agriculture of the countries having an ancient agricultural
and agroindustrial tradition towards the production of typical
products, protected by certification marks and guaranteed
by production regulations that unite traditional and innovative
agricultural techniques;
·
biological (organic) agriculture: ethical and objective motivations of
“total quality” of human life and of the environment determine
a new form of agriculture, in Italy called biological, in
Great Britain organic and elsewhere ecological, which foresees
the complete elimination of chemical synthesis means (parasiticides
and herbicides), the use of organic fertilizers or non synthesis
mineral fertilizers and the prohibition against cultivating
transgenic plants; biological agriculture, codified by European
Union standard no. 2092 of 1991, is not a return to classic
agriculture, from which it nevertheless assumes the “systemic”
formulation, but is an organizational innovation that is
to technological and industrial agriculture as the “Toyota”
industry is to the “Ford” industry, since biological farmers
introduce product certification and a new relationship between
producer and consumer;
·
sustainable agriculture: widespread environmental pollution phenomena
(dispersion of nitrates and synthesis molecules in the groundwater
tables and accumulation of heavy metals in the soil) have
pushed the European Union and other countries to adopt legislative
measures to control polluting emissions and/or to support
farmers that practice growing techniques with the minimum
use of parasiticides and chemical fertilizers, in such a
way as to make their use compatible with the load capacity
of the natural ecosystems (low input agriculture);
the use of integrated techniques for fighting plant parasites
(a mix of biological fight and limited use of chemical
fighting means) stimulates the use of quality brands of
agricultural products (in particular for fruits and vegetables),
guaranteed under the common label of “integrated agriculture
products";
·
multifunctional agriculture: multifunctional agriculture pursues a
set of objectives aimed at the protection and development
of the rural territory: conservation of natural resources
and of agricultural landscapes, prevention of environmental
damage, promotion of the quality and typicalness of food
products, maintenance of the activities aimed at protection
of the territory; multifunctional agriculture is supported
by the rural development politics of the European Union
and by contractual instruments provided for by some member
states: management
agreements in Great Britain (Countryside
Stewardship Scheme, Organic
Farming Scheme, Environmental Sensitive Scheme and Woodlands Grant Scheme) and Contrat Territorial d'Exploitation in France,
with which the French state guarantees support to the farmer
so that he can improve quality products, protect the environment,
watch over the renewal of natural resources and manage the
landscape, complying with society’s new expectations towards
modern agriculture. Table
1.1 – Connection between the various forms of agriculture
and chemical risk
The localization of the various forms of
agriculture and of the relative chemical risks in the continental,
national and local scenarios is difficult because they evolve
in the same space and can cohabit in different spaces that
are close by. The
diffusion of modern agricultural techniques in the less
developed areas contributes to the difficulty in spotting
the forms of agriculture, thanks to the FAO or to the other
international cooperation bodies; even more so if we consider
that after some excesses accomplished with the complete
replacement of traditional agriculture with technological
agriculture (the first “green revolution”), a model of diffusion
of the technical progress in agriculture was adopted that
gives space to local empirical knowledge (the second “green
revolution”). In worldwide scenarios under development
for the contextual globalisation of the agroindustrial product
markets and of techno-agricultural progress, we can outline
the characteristics of agriculture just by applying very
simple indexes, which can be found in the international
statistics, such as, for example, the percentage of farm
workers on the total assets: agricultural assets decrease
rapidly, going from transitional agriculture to technological
and industrial, to stabilize or slightly rise with biological
agriculture and/or with that dedicated to the production
of typical foods. For
a quick examination of agriculture characteristics and of
the associated chemical risks for workers, consumers and
the environment, some quite significant correlations can
be established between the percentage of the assets in agriculture
with respect to the total assets of a given economic system
and the agriculture forms prevalent in that system.
Nevertheless, more complete and correct correlations
can be formulated also using macroeconomic (for example,
per capita income) and demographic (for example, population
density) variables that, crossed with the percentage of
assets in agriculture on the total assets, allows building
a more acceptable reference picture, such as the one shown
in Figure 1.
In the African continent, agriculture
is found, generally speaking, at the initial stages of subsistence
or traditional agriculture, even though there are some highly
developed countries with transitional or technological agriculture
(Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa and Madagascar) and minor
areas of industrial agriculture (floriculture and horticulture)
in other countries (Kenya, Senegal). The chemical risk in Africa is low, even though
in the most intensive agricultural areas, the chemical risk
can reach high levels, also because of the tendency to transfer
the chemical products that are the most dangerous for man
and the most polluting for the environment to less developed
countries. As far
as the socio-economic characteristics are concerned, it
is deemed that in Africa, even the possibilities for control
of the chemical risk are extremely low. In Asia, the high population density has
pushed in the past and still pushes farmers to intensely
exploit the fertile lands of India and China’s plains near
large rivers and the extremely vast pastures of the central
plain. In Asia, agriculture
is prevalently traditional or transitional, even though
it is launched, following the rapid industrial takeoff,
towards technological forms that also foresee the issuing
of “technological packages” by multinational companies based
on genetically modified plants.
In Asia, nevertheless, there are also developed countries
(Japan and Israel) with advanced agricultures.
The chemical risk in agriculture is definitely growing
in Asia, but the possibilities for controlling it are still
those, indeed modest, of little developed countries. Another evolutionary continental scenario
is the South American one where the large farming countries
(Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay) have technological
agricultures that foresee high-tech innovations in which
much space is given to genetic engineering (Soya in Argentina).
Other countries whose agriculture preserves traditional
or transitional characteristics are in contrast with the
most evolved South American countries. The chemical risk in South American agriculture
is not high because the availability of land allows less
concentrated uses of chemical means in the space: the economic
crisis and political instability in South America make it
not very realistic to think of effective chemical risk controls. North America, Oceania and Europe (excluding
Russia) are the continents with the greatest economic development
and therefore they are endowed with technologically advanced
agricultures. The quick review proposed here of the forms
of agriculture at a worldwide level aims at underlining
Europe’s specificity with regard to the other developed
countries. Although
some countries of North America and Oceania have traditional
or transition agricultures, the agricultures of the large
Anglo-Saxon countries dominate in these continents: USA
and Canada in North America, Australia and New Zealand in
Oceania. Comparing
Europe to these countries, which have similar percentages
of assets in agriculture and comparable per capita income
levels, we note that European agriculture cohabits with
high population densities, which make the problem of the
chemical risks of agriculture acute, not only for farm workers
and consumers, as in North America and Oceania, but also
for the natural ecosystems. This specific European characteristic explains
the interest in biological, sustainable and multifunctional
agriculture and/or in typical productions, all innovative
scenarios that reduce chemical risk, which is noted more
in Europe than elsewhere, beyond the political regions inherent
in the reduction of public spending for guaranteeing agricultural
prices. Before moving on to the detailed examination
of the European situation, it must be stated that a worldwide
balance between agroindustrial requirements and production
that is substantially balanced counterbalances a growing
chemical risk in agriculture, keeping in mind that the worldwide
population has exceeded 6 billion people (Table 1.3). Table
1.3. Food requirements and availability on a worldwide level
The problems of undernourishment and malnutrition
are not technical but economical and political, being due
to the difficulties that less developed countries have in
paying for the importations of foodstuffs or to the fact
that these countries pay for the importations of industrial
technologies with the exportation of their agricultural
products. The political
problems depend in their turn on the difficulties of giving
rules to worldwide commerce that provide for alternative
forms of payment for foodstuffs (not only hard currency
but also obligations to adopt correct development policies,
to combat corruption and arms or drug traffic, to not destroy
natural and historical resources that are of interest to
mankind). Amartya
Sen believes that neither the technological development
of agriculture nor the present rules of worldwide commerce
are sufficient to solve the problem of hunger and of malnutrition
in the world, but it is necessary to grant all of the communities
of the countries the entitlements to the resources needed
to produce food. The
problems of hunger and malnutrition in the world can be
solved through: a) the further technological development
of agriculture, which cannot avoid a growing recourse to
the use of chemicals; b) the further internationalisation
of agricultural markets; c) the introduction of new rules
of international commerce that grant all communities of
the world entitlements to food resources. If the technological progress of agriculture
is inevitable because of the competition on international
markets and indispensable for guaranteeing balance between
food requirements and availability at the worldwide level,
the chemical risk is destined to increase in the world,
showing up more acutely precisely in the countries that
will move away from subsistence or traditional agricultures:
the greatest risks concern the farm workers and the poorest
consumers, which are the social sectors that are weakest
and more exposed to indiscriminate and uncontrolled use
of chemicals. Therefore,
the responsibility for introducing innovations that entail
a more correct use of chemicals in agriculture and that
are more susceptible to monitoring and control falls on
the advanced countries and, in particular, on Europe, which
has succeeded in adapting agricultural techniques to reconcile
them to more exposed demographic and social situations with
respect to the other continents, to an extended range of
chemical risks. Moving on to Europe, we will focus in particular
on the situation of the 15 member states of the European
Union (Table 1.4), and then move on to the Italian regions,
and to the Tuscan provinces (Tables 1.5 and 1.6), among
which the province of Livorno, to which this study refers. Table
1.4 – Agricultural assets, demographic density and per capita
income in the E.U. (with 15 member states)
The
chemical risk in agriculture in the European Union is difficult
to highlight and control because it requires specific knowledge
and operational interventions.
It can be stated that the difficulties are greater
in Europe than in the countries where the agriculture uses
massive doses of chemicals because here it is possible to
monitor vast territories, intervening with mass control
standards and instruments. On the other hand, in the 15 member state Europe,
even in small territories it is not possible to define a
priori which form of control, standards or operational instrument
it is best to use since it is possible to find farms that
use technological agriculture near biological farms, horticulture
farms or floriculture farms with greenhouses near farms
dedicated to typical productions or to agritourism. This disparity of situations is present in Italy
also where the agricultural pluralism is accentuated by
the variability of the socio-economic structure of the Italian
regions (Table 1.5): in no other European Union country are ranges
of 80 percentage points of per capita income found, with
respect to the European average, between the richest region
(Lombardy) and the poorest (Calabria). Table
1.5 – Agricultural assets, demographic density and per capita
income in Italy
In
the Italian context, Tuscany is one of the regions that
most closely approaches the European Union average (Table
1.5) in terms of percentage of agricultural assets (4.6%
in Tuscany against 6.6% in the European Union), of demographic
density (153.4 inhabitants/Km2 against 154.7)
and of per capita income (setting the European per capita
income equal to 100, the index number for Tuscany is 113.7).
In its turn, the province of Livorno is aligned with
Tuscany’s average as far as the percentage of agricultural
assets is concerned, but not for demographic density, which
is higher than the Tuscan, Italian and European average:
the province of Livorno, because of its urban-industrial
and maritime-coastal characteristics, has more similarities
with some Northern European countries like Holland and the
United Kingdom and also with the northern regions of Germany
(towns or regions with which the city of Livorno has had
commercial and cultural relationships for a long time).
Even the agriculture of the province of Livorno shows
a mix of advanced technologies and of ecocompatible and
multifunctional forms of agriculture that are typical of
the European agricultures practiced in fertile lands, which
are strongly sought after by other human activities. Table
1.6 – Agricultural assets, demographic density in the provinces
of Tuscany
Although
the economic and socio-political conditions of the European
Union, of Italy, of Tuscany and of the province of Livorno
are favourable for the control of the chemical risk in agriculture
for farm workers, for consumers of food products and for
the environment, the cognitive difficulties are so high
as to make it extremely onerous for the community and for
individual agricultural entrepreneurs to put effective monitoring
methods and adequate intervention instruments into practice.
Even in rich countries, agriculture’s productive
fabric is relatively weak and not very available to operate
on behalf of the greater collective interest if the farmers
are not properly supported by public incentives or involved
by the state through particular contractual instruments. We
are in the presence of a paradox: on the one hand, the countries
with the most advanced agriculture have the duty, for themselves
and for developing countries, to put forward control instruments
and forms of intervention that are capable of preventing
or effectively reducing the chemical risk in agriculture
(as with every other form of risk for man and for nature);
on the other hand, even in the richest countries, agriculture
remains a weak sector because it is strongly parcelled out
and diversified within. How can we get out of the impasse? There is only one way: to invest in the knowledge
of national, regional and local government bodies – and
this study can contribute in this direction – and to invest
in the responsibility of all operators in the sector, provided
that they are adequately informed of the risks involved
in the use of chemicals and of the control and prevention
measures (this study can be useful in this direction also).
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