4
From Pesticides to People: Improving
Ecosystem Health in the Northern Andes
Stephen Sherwood, Donald Cole, Charles Crissman and
Myriam ParedesIntroduction
Since the early 1990s, a number of national and international organizations have
been working with communities in Carchi, Ecuador’s northernmost province, on
projects to assess the role and effects of pesticide use in potato production and to
reduce its adverse impacts. These are INIAP (National Institute of Agricultural
Research from Ecuador), CIP (International Potato Center), Montana State Univer-
sity (US), McMaster University and University of Toronto (Canada), Wageningen
University (The Netherlands), and the FAO’s (Food and Agriculture Organiza tion)
Global Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Facility.
These projects have provided quantitative assessments of community-wide
pesticide use and its adverse effects. Through system modelling and implementa-
tion of different alternatives, we have demonstrated the effectiveness of different
methods to lessen pesticide dependency and thereby improve ecosystem health.
Meanwhile, the principal approach to risk reduction of the national pesticide
industry continues to be farmer education through ‘Safe Use’ campaigns, despite
the safe use of highly toxic chemicals under the social and environmental condi-
tions of developing countries being an unreachable ideal. These conflicting per-
spectives and the continued systematic poisoning of many rural people in Carchi
have motivated a call for international action (Sherwood et al, 2002).
The project members have worked with interested stakeholders to inform the
policy debate on pesticide use at both the provincial and national levels. Our posi-
tion has evolved to include the reduction of pesticide exposure risk through a
combination of hazard removal (in particular, the elimination of highly toxic pes-
ticides from the market), the development of alternative practices and ecological
Reprinted from Sherwood S, Cole D, Crissman C and Paredes M. 2005. Transforming potato systems
in the Andes, in Pretty J (ed). The Pesticide Detox. Earthscan, London.