The Political Economy of Regulation of Biotechnology in Agriculture - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 690

The Industrialization of
Agriculture: Postwar Applications for
War-Time Chemicals
The health and environmental safety of the use of synthetic chemicals in conventional
agriculture began to be questioned in the 1950s as many new control products, born out
of chemical research programs during World War II, made their way to the marketplace.
Prior to World War I, nearly all farming was what is now referred to as organic agri-
culture . The Haber-Bosch process9 was developed in Germany to convert atmospheric
nitrogen (N2) into ammonia (NH3) and then into nitrate (NO3), which was used sub-
sequently to make bombs and other explosive devices. The details of the Haber-Bosch
process were stolen by the French near the end of the war and passed on to their allies.
Natural supplies of mineral nitrogen (N) were becoming more and more difficult to
procure; thus, a logical peace time application of the Haber-Bosch process was to make
ammonia- and nitrate-based fertilizers. Likewise, mustard gas and other neurotoxins
and defoliants developed during wartime also found their way into postwar agriculture
as pesticides. Thus, the age of synthetic, chemical-based agriculture was born. Oddly,
this form of agriculture is known today as conventional agriculture , one in which syn-
thetic pesticides (including herbicides), fertilizers, and other industrial inputs are used
to promote high yields, even though the negative effects of chemical use on humans and
the environment are now well known.
“DDT is good for me” was a prominent slogan aimed at manipulating public senti-
ment. Evidence began mounting in the 1940s and 1950s that these chemicals were hav-
ing devastating effects on human and environmental health (Rosner and Markowitz
2013). The issue broke out into the open with the publication of Rachel Carson's book
Silent Spring (1963),10 which documented ten years of research into the biosafety of
these products. Chemical companies responded vociferously and resisted attempts to
ban their products, insisting that they were safe until proven otherwise. Even labeling
products as toxins and potential carcinogens (cancer-causing substances) was fought
with fervor by the chemical industry. The publication of Silent Spring is often cited as the
beginning of the environmental movement in the United States, which ultimately led to
the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Carson biographer Mark
Hamilton Lytle (2007) wrote that Carson “quite self-consciously decided to write a book
calling into question the paradigm of scientific progress that defined postwar American
culture.” In the final chapter of Silent Spring , Carson anticipated the advent of crop bio-
technology by suggesting that the need for chemical insecticides could be circumvented
by advances in plant breeding that would yield pest-resistant crops.
Over the next decade, research would document that most of these chemicals were
highly toxic and some were also carcinogenic and thus needed to be more tightly
regulated or banned.11 As an early “whistle-blower,” Carson was roundly criticized.