Environmental system management and governance needs in a developing country

Environmental governance in the twenty-first century in Bangladesh faces serious challenges in terms of improving service delivery. There are surfeits of laws, rules and regulations as well as institutions to manage and govern the environmental sector. The legal regime is quite comprehensive, yet little attempts have been made so far to iron out the contradictions and duplications among existing rules and regulations. Institutions continue to suffer because of a number of reasons. Coordination among different ministries and other agencies in the governmental and non-governmental sectors is poor. Inter-organizational meetings and other follow-up meetings are not regularly held and usually fail to achieve their intended objectives. Though attempts have been made to involve people at the formulation stage of action plans, seldom people are taken into confidence and consulted with when these plans are implemented. One of the consequences of such a situation is people’s lack of interest in government-sponsored environmental protection programs. The decision-making procedure/situation of different environmental development projects and policies did not follow the holistic or coordinated principles so that post-impacts of works appeared vast and diverse conflicts. This paper tries to search the history of environmental protection of Bangladesh, relevant environmental laws, rules, regulations and projects and major international conventions, treaties, and protocols signed or ratified by Bangladesh as well as investigates the current situation, mechanism and decision making regarding environment in the context of environmental governance, analyzing the problems and also explored the challenges for environmental management in Bangladesh and associated problems and risks of system and finally proposed some core guidelines of effective environmental governance and system management for Bangladesh.     

Pesticide environmental indicators and environmental policy

A current concern in many European countries is the environmental impact of agricultural pesticide usage and appropriate policy development to reduce impact. Currently, relatively hazardous pesticides that might be targeted for replacement by other products or management practices are not positively identified, with consequently few incentives for farmers to choose the least environmentally-risky chemicals. There is a lacuna in terms of widely-agreed operational environmental indicators, and an urgent need for comparative environmental assessment tools for pesticides, for use by both agriculturists and policy-makers. Such a system could, for example, provide a basis on which to differentiate an eco-tax according to the environmental threats posed by each product, and thus improve policy effectiveness. The heterogeneity of pesticide chemicals should be taken into account more explicitly in policy design. Through a comparison of different approaches covered in the literature on pesticide environmental classifications, this paper assesses the feasibility of developing environmental banding to improve the effectiveness of pesticide policy. A more pragmatic approach lies in the development of pesticide groupings rather than a continuous scale of environmental burden, i.e. focusing on broad similarities and differences rather than precise individual ordering. In particular, hazard indicators should be considered further, as a first stage in progress towards comprehensive environmental impact measures.     

Food Supply Chain Governance And Public Health Externalities: Upstream Policy Interventions And The UK State

Contemporary food supply chains are generating externalities with high economic and social costs, notably in public health terms through the rise in diet-related non-communicable disease. The UK State is developing policy strategies to tackle these public health problems alongside intergovernmental responses. However, the governance of food supply chains is conducted by, and across, both private and public spheres and within a multilevel framework. The realities of contemporary food governance are that private interests are key drivers of food supply chains and have institutionalized a great deal of standards-setting and quality, notably from their locations in the downstream and midstream sectors. The UK State is designing some downstream and some midstream interventions to ameliorate the public health impacts of current food consumption patterns in England. The UK State has not addressed upstream interventions towards public health diet at the primary food production and processing stages, although traditionally it has shaped agricultural policy. Within the realities of contemporary multilevel governance, the UK State must act within the contexts set by the international regimes of the Common Agricultural Policy and the World Trade Organization agreements, notably on agriculture. The potential for further upstream agricultural policy reform is considered as part of a wider policy approach to address the public health externalities issuing from contemporary food supply chains within this multilevel governance context.     

Beyond a bottle of liquid: pesticide dependence in transitional rural China

Pesticide dependence is a major threat to food safety and local environment. Although numerous studies have explored different causes of pesticide dependence, few have examined how pesticides are locked into agricultural modernisation and rural transformation. Based on a case study of a Chinese village, this paper demonstrates how agricultural modernisation trajectory and rural changes have perpetuated the use of pesticides as necessities in agriculture as well as for farmers' livelihoods. Modern technologies, such as hybrid rice, conservation tillage, changes in crop structure, and reduction of intercropping all contribute highly towards pesticide dependence. The household responsibility system in China has provided the institutional foundation for increased pesticide use. Rural transformations driven by livelihoods diversification have created conducive social spaces for pesticide application. To step out of pesticide dependence, promotion of genetic diversity in agriculture, a reassessment of locational suitability of conservation tillage, institutional strengthening and the promotion of integrated pest management methods are suggested.     

Continuing Issues in the Limitations of Pesticide Use in Developing Countries

The rationale for pesticide use in agriculture is that costs associated with pesticide pollution are to be justified by its benefits, but this is not so obvious. Valuing the benefits by simple economic analysis has increased pesticide use in agriculture and consequently produced pesticide-induced “public ills.” This paper attempts to explore the research gaps of the economic and social consequences of pesticide use in developing countries, particularly with an example of Nepal. We argue that although the negative sides of agricultural development, for example- soil, water, and air pollution; pest resistance and resurgence; bioaccumulation, bio-magnification; and loss of biodiversity and ecosystem resilience caused by the use of pesticides in agriculture, are “developmental problems” and are “unintentional,” the magnitude may be increased by undervaluing the problems in the analysis of its economic returns. Despite continuous effort for holistic system analyses for studying complex phenomena like pesticides impacts, the development within the academic science has proceeded in the opposite direction that might have accelerated marginalization of the third world subsistence agricultural communities. We hypothesize that, if these adversities are realized and accounted for, the benefits from the current use of pesticides could be outweighed by the costs of pollution and ill human health. This paper also illustrates different pathways and mechanisms for marginalization. In view of potential and overall negative impacts of pesticide use, we recommend alternative ways of controlling pests such as community integrated pest management (IPM) along with education and training activities. Such measures are likely to reduce the health and environmental costs of pesticide pollution, and also enhance the capabilities of third world agricultural communities in terms of knowledge, decision making, innovation, and policy change.     

The Fat of the Land: Linking American Food Overconsumption, Obesity, and Biodiversity Loss

Americans’ excessive consumption of food harms their health and quality of life and also causes direct and indirect environmental degradation, through habitat loss and increased pollution from agricultural fertilizers and pesticides. We show here that reducing food consumption (and eating less meat) could improve Americans’ health and well-being while facilitating environmental benefits ranging from establishing new national parks and protected areas to allowing more earth-friendly farming and ranching techniques. We conclude by considering various public policy initiatives to lower per capita caloric intake and excessive meat consumption, and to translate this temperate behavior into substantial environmental protection.     

Market governance for safe food in developing countries: The case of low-pesticide vegetables in Vietnam

In many developed countries private arrangements have emerged in food governance. Following limited successes of state regulation, market actors and mechanisms are increasingly included in the environmental and safety governance of domestic and global food chains and networks. But do such private governance arrangements also work in domestic markets in developing countries? Pesticide use in vegetable supply is taken as a case to explore the role of market actors and dynamics in food safety governance in Vietnam. The so-called safe vegetable production system in the Red River Delta, introduced 10 years ago as a domestic alternative to conventional vegetable production, is analyzed through detailed monitoring of farmers, surveys of retailers and consumers, and in-depth interviews with state officials and vegetable traders. The paper finds limited success of this low-pesticide vegetable production, distribution and consumption system. This private arrangement in food governance lacked trust from market actors (especially consumers), and was short of an active state that organized transparency and got market actors involved. As such, market governance in food safety needs to be strong.     

Institutional, Legal, and Economic Instruments in Ghana's Environmental Policy

The environmental situation in Ghana is characterized by desertification, land degradation, deforestation, soil erosion, and inadequate water supply in the northern regions of the country. The population as a whole is growing at a rate of 3% per annum, with even greater urban growth rates, due to rural out-migration. Large parts of the coastal zone in the south are rapidly developing to become one large suburbanized area. Water quality is particularly threatened in the urban and industrialized areas, which are mainly located in the southern part of the country. The coastal lagoons and coastal waters are moderately to heavily polluted. Erosion extends along the whole Ghanaian coast with excesses, for example, in the Keta area, where during the last century over 90% of the original buildings have been washed awayby the sea. The obvious environmental consequences of the mining sector are illustrative of the environmental threats caused by a fast growing industry and industrializing agriculture, in a country where environmental policy is only in its formative years. Desertification, food insecurity and coastal erosion all contribute to an increasing number of environmental refugees. Environmental policy in Ghana is a post-Rio phenomenon. Environmental laws, a Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, an advisory National Committee for the Implementation of Agenda 21, and a fully mandated environmental administration have been established. This administration advocates a progressive attitude towards environmental legislation and points out the specific utility of economic and legal instruments in environmental management in this relatively fast developing country. The choice of instruments for environmental management is increasingly influenced by the specific state of African environmental and technological capacity and by a call for the recognition of the role of traditional customs in nature conservation. This African perspective on environmental management is further intensified by an unmet need for regional, transboundary cooperation in the West African subcontinent. This specific West African context calls for an elaboration of an effective capacity-building program for environmental management in the area.     

Environmental labelling in The Netherlands: a framework for integrated farming

This article compares four Dutch environmental certification schemes for agricultural food crops, analysing their methodology and the completeness of their criteria on five aspects: pesticide use, nutrient use, water management, energy and materials consumption, and habitat management. The least stringent of the labels, the MBT ('Environmentally Aware Cultivation') certificate, serves mainly to increase farmers' awareness of nutrient and pesticide use. With regard to both administrative obligations and actual management practices, the MBT label largely mirrors the terms of standing Dutch legislation. The CC ('Controlled Cultivation') and AMK ('Agro-Environmental') labels comprise more and more stringent criteria. With their restrictions on nutrient and pesticide use, these two labels serve as the two principal labels in the field of integrated agriculture. There is little difference between the two and it is recommended that they be merged, on the basis of a standardised definition of integrated agriculture. The EKO ('Organic Agriculture') label proceeds from different principles, but as a minimum should also comply with Dutch legislation without exception. For both integrated and organic agriculture, in addition to criteria on pesticide and nutrient use, criteria should also be developed for water management, energy and materials use and habitat management. The relationship between the criteria and their respective thresholds and Dutch legislation is also addressed. Existing criteria are frequently specified in such a way that the environmental benefits cannot be ascertained. This is a serious drawback for the parties further down the chain: auctioneers, retailers and consumers. It is recommended to develop qualitative guidelines for an Agricultural Stewardship Council at international level, like the Forest Stewardship Council, and a separate label for integrated agriculture per country comprising quantitative criteria for all relevant aspects of farming operations.     

Review of information on pesticide residues in the Canadian environment

Summary Pesticide residues in soil, water, food, wildlife and other media have been analysed in several monitoring studies. The purpose was to establish the distribution of these residues across a defined area, ascertain their trend over a specific period and use the results to assess environmental compliance and safety. In the present review the availability of information on pesticide residues in various Canadian environmental components was sought. With the possible exception of localized pesticide contamination of some private water supply wells, ground and surface water, most analyses revealed concentrations below guideline limits. Only a few cases were reported of mishandling, misuse and poisoning from pesticides. Continuing surveillance programmes and in-depth and well-organized monitoring studies, with special focus on areas that are vulnerable to contamination, by both provincial and federal governments, are largely responsible for the encouraging results. This experience in the control of pesticide use and monitoring of residues in the environment should be of particular interest in developing countries.Dr A.Y. Sangodoyin is a senior lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Engineering at the University of Ibadan. He was recently involved in a study visit to the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2G7, where his co-author Dr D.W. Smith is a member of staff in the Department of Civil-Engineering.     

Combination of multispectral remote sensing, variable rate technology and environmental modeling for citrus pest management

The Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) of south Texas is an agriculturally rich area supporting intensive production of vegetables, fruits, grain sorghum, and cotton. Modern agricultural practices involve the combined use of irrigation with the application of large amounts of agrochemicals to maximize crop yields. Intensive agricultural activities in past decades might have caused potential contamination of soil, surface water, and groundwater due to leaching of pesticides in the vadose zone. In an effort to promote precision farming in citrus production, this paper aims at developing an airborne multispectral technique for identifying tree health problems in a citrus grove that can be combined with variable rate technology (VRT) for required pesticide application and environmental modeling for assessment of pollution prevention. An unsupervised linear unmixing method was applied to classify the image for the grove and quantify the symptom severity for appropriate infection control. The PRZM-3 model was used to estimate environmental impacts that contribute to nonpoint source pollution with and without the use of multispectral remote sensing and VRT. Research findings using site-specific environmental assessment clearly indicate that combination of remote sensing and VRT may result in benefit to the environment by reducing the nonpoint source pollution by 92.15%. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential of precision farming for citrus production in the nexus of industrial ecology and agricultural sustainability.     

QuEChERS提取法在农产品农药残留检测中的应用进展

食品中的农药残留检测长期以来一直是一项艰巨的挑战,其杂质干扰多,残留含量低,传统的提取方法常常因为无法将杂质分离而影响检测结果。由于食品中杂质种类众多,农药的种类繁多且理化性质各异,新型农药日益涌现,所以对样品的前处理提出了更高的要求。近年来,QuEchERs（Quick,Easy,Cheap,Effective,RuggedandSafe）作为一种新型的提取方法,由于具有快速、简单、廉价、有效、可靠、安全的特点,成为国内外广泛采用的样品前处理新技术,在多种农药、医药、兽药的气相或液相色谱分析中已经得到广泛应用。本文就国内外对QuEChERS法在各类食品以及其他动植物性农产品的农药残留检测中的应用和方法的改进进行了综述,并对QuEChERS法在今后农药残留检测的应用前景以及发展方向进行了展望。     

Stockpiles of obsolete pesticides and cleanup priorities: A methodology and application for Tunisia

Obsolete pesticides have accumulated in almost every developing country or economy in transition over the past several decades. Concerned about the risks these chemicals pose to nearby residents, public health and environmental authorities are eager to reduce health threats by removing and decontaminating stockpile sites. However, there are many sites, cleanup can be costly, and public resources are scarce, so decision makers need to set priorities. Under these conditions, it seems sensible to develop a methodology for prioritizing sites and treating them sequentially, as budgetary resources permit.This paper presents a new methodology that develops a cleanup priority index for 1915 metric tons of obsolete pesticide formulations at 197 stockpile sites in Tunisia. The approach integrates information on populations at risk, their proximity to stockpiles, and the relative toxic hazards of the stockpiles. What emerges from the Tunisia results is a strategy for sequentially addressing all 197 sites to rapidly reduce potential health damage in a cost-effective way.     

吡唑和吡咯类农药残留检测技术研究进展

吡唑和吡咯类农药具有高效、良好杀菌能力、对环境友好等特点,已经成为当前使用量较大的一类农药.随着该类农药在农业生产中的广泛使用,其残留问题已经引起关注.由于吡唑和吡咯类农药在环境、农作物和食品中痕量存在,最大残留限量值也日益严格,其残留分析便成为了一项重要的工作.本文综述了近年来土壤、蔬菜、蜂蜜、环境水等基体中吡唑和吡咯类农药残留分析的加压溶剂提取、微波辅助萃取、固相萃取、固相微萃取、基质分散固相萃取、QuEChERS法等前处理方法和气相色谱法、液相色谱法及其与质谱联用的色谱检测技术的研究进展,以上前处理技术有机溶剂量小、高效快速、对环境友好,与色谱技术联用后具有灵敏度高、检出限低、精密度高等特点,并对未来的发展进行了展望.     

Design of a European agrochemical plastic packaging waste management scheme—Pilot implementation in Greece

Mismanagement of Agrochemicals Plastic Packaging Waste (APPW) constitutes a major environmental problem, resulting in the pollution of soil, air and water resources and compromising the agricultural products safety, the protection of the environment and the public health. Systems for the management of APPW have been established in some European countries and they are operational for several years now. However, these schemes are incompatible while their operational conditions and technical criteria could be improved. In many countries no schemes exist yet for the management of APPW with serious negative consequences for the environment and public health. In response to these problems the European project AgroChePack has developed an environmental friendly, economically viable European APPW management scheme by transferring know-how from existing schemes, designing a new integrated APPW management scheme and testing it through pilot trials in five countries. This work presents the basic design principles established by AgroChePack by identifying problems and bottlenecks faced by existing schemes in Europe, by developing an integrated APPW scheme and by implementing, evaluating and optimising this scheme through pilot trials in Greece.     

Crop Biotechnology for the Environment?

In public debates, agricultural biotechnology is almost invariably discussed as a potential threat to the environment and to human health. Without downplaying the risks associated with this technology we emphasize that if properly regulated, it can be a forceful tool to solve environmental problems and promote human health. Agricultural biotechnology can reduce environmental problems in at least three ways: it can diminish the need for environmentally damaging agricultural practices such as pesticides, fertilizers, tillage, and irrigation. It can reduce the land area needed for agriculture, thus reducing the CO₂ effect of agriculture and improving biodiversity. It can produce energy in a CO₂-neutral way (especially if new technologies involving the cultivation of microalgae become successful). Furthermore, agricultural biotechnology can have positive effects on human health by decreasing occupational and dietary exposure to pesticides, improving the nutritional value of food, and producing pharmaceuticals more efficiently. We argue that those who wish to give high priority to environmental goals cannot afford any longer to be mere onlookers while others decide the future directions of agricultural biotechnology.     

Improving pesticide regulation in the third world: The role of an independent hazard auditor

Central to the environmental and health hazards created by the expanding use of pesticides in developing countries is the weakness of national regulatory agencies. This article reviews current international efforts aimed at supporting these institutions and describes the contribution that an external “hazard auditor” might make in assessing the pesticide industry's adherence to accepted standards of health and environmental protection. An independent evaluation of this kind may prove attractive to all parties in the long-standing confrontation over the control of pesticide technology: the industry, public interest groups, developing and developed countries, and international agencies. The article outlines one approach to operationalizing the concept and examines initial responses to the proposal. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Commission on Occupational Health/International Development Research Centre Symposium on the Impact of Pesticide Use on Health in Developing Countries, 17–21 September 1990, Ottawa, Canada.     

Agricultural practices,ecology, and ethics in the third world

The increasing demand for horticultural products for nutritional and economic purposes by lesser developed countries (LDC's) is well-documented. Technological demands of the LDC's producing horticultural products is also increasing. Pesticide use is an integral component of most agricultural production, yet chemicals are often supplied without supplemental information vital for their safe and efficient implementation. Illiteracy rates in developing countries are high, making pesticide education even more challenging. For women, who perform a significant share of agricultural tasks, illiteracy rates are even higher than for men. The dilemma exists of how a developing country can improve its nutritional and economic situation without giving consideration to social and environmental consequences.     

Mapping pesticide contamination potential

Groundwater contamination by agricultural chemicals is a major environmental pollution issue nation-wide. The regulatory agencies of towns and counties face the problem of finding a methodology for assessing the ground-water contamination potential of a large number of agricultural pesticides. Because of the spatial nature of the problem and the limited data availability for comprehensive pesticide movement models, a contamination potential index was employed for preliminary assessment. A specially designed geographic information system was used to create ground-water contamination likelihood maps for a 1500 km² area. The results suggest that this methodology can be used successfully for evaluating the relative contamination potential of a large number of pesticides over large areas with limited input data. A tentative approach for using this method for monitoring and registration of pesticides is also discussed.     

Constrained Choice and Ethical Dilemmas in Land Management: Environmental Quality and Food Safety in California Agriculture

As environmental and conservation efforts increasingly turn towards agricultural landscapes, it is important to understand how land management decisions are made by agricultural producers. While previous studies have explored producer decision-making, many fail to recognize the importance of external structural influences. This paper uses a case study to explore how consolidated markets and increasing corporate power in the food system can constrain producer choice and create ethical dilemmas over land management. Crop growers in the Central Coast region of California face conflicting demands regarding environmental quality and industry imposed food safety standards. A mail survey and personal interviews were used to explore growers’ perceptions and actions regarding these demands. Results indicate that in many cases growers face serious ethical dilemmas and feel pressured by large processing and retail firms to adopt measures they find environmentally destructive and unethical. Future strategies to address environmental issues on agricultural landscapes should consider the economic constraints producers face and the role of large firms in creating production standards.