Student Voices: Growing Up in the Middle of the Midwest
By: Max McElwain, Sophomore at Indiana University, Bloomington
Throughout my youth, I often saw crop duster planes flying near our house, and as a child with no understanding of their implications, I thought it was the coolest thing about living in the middle of nowhere. Whenever they flew overhead, my Mom would call my sister and I inside to close the windows and shelter until the danger had passed. Hovering inside the safety of our home, we watched through fingerprint-smudged window panes as the planes flew low over the fields across the street, leaving huge trails of dust over the corn and soybeans in their wake.
Seeing planes flying so low to the ground in such close proximity to my home was pretty awe-inspiring to my six-year-old self. It made me feel like I lived in a crucial farmland area and that the neighbors were providing all of the food for our town. The sweet corn and mums that they sold across the street rounded out this childhood vision.
The Midwest is considered one of America’s of the best places to raise kids. Considering the average price of raising a family, it is reasonable to say that the Midwest is affordable and beautiful. In my town, we were surrounded by corn fields and farms; no one was ever more that 20 minutes from a field of some sort, and that sort of scenery is a great backdrop for the average American nuclear family. However, small town midwestern living also means that encountering a crop duster was (and still is) basically a guaranteed part of living there. And pretty recently, something about the crop dusting tradition in our house --running inside, closing the windows, seeing the dust fall over crops-- struck a nerve. It’s pretty concerning that we had to hide from whatever they were dropping on food. So I decided to do some research:
Turns out, crop dusting is pretty helpful for farmers. It helps to maximize profit margins and keep away pests, but finding exactly what that pesticide or “dust” was that the crop dusters sprayed was difficult. Part of it had to do with the variety in pesticides, but it made me wonder why there wasn’t a master list somewhere. After searching through article after article and scanning a few pages back into Google, I finally found part of the answer: Neonicotinoids and paraquat dichloride. Neonicotinoids, or neonics, are “neuro-active insecticides,” and were banned by the EU and US wildlife refuges until 2018, when part of that decision was revoked by the Trump Administration. Paraquat dichloride is also a commonly used pesticide which has been linked to Parkinson’s disease, and while it is currently labeled a “restricted use’ chemical, even small amounts can be detrimental to wildlife. These kinds of chemicals are contributing to pollinator collapse and putting bees in danger of extinction. And that’s just the two chemicals I could find abundant information about. There are a plethora of other pesticides that are sprayed on foods across America.
Adding to my concern was the fact that these planes are not always accurate and that pesticides have the potential to drift through the air. The pesticides, insecticide, or fungicide sprayed finds its way into the native wildlife, killing off plants and animals and leaching into our waterways. These pesticides can also make their way into our homes (even when we try our best to close all the windows). Additionally, our usage of these chemicals is causing insects and pests in the fields to become resistant to pesticides, fueling increased use of pesticides known as the pesticide treadmill. These “super” bugs require higher strength pesticides, which are often increasingly toxic. This horrendous process shows no sign of slowing down or stopping. In fact, there are currently tests being run on drones as a potential replacement to crop dusting planes.
Pictured is Max at a weeding day out front of the football stadium. Max and the HFC IU team reported that the weeding day was a reminder of how quickly weeds regrow and how strenuous this must be for the landscaping team. Through helping to hand weed, they will reduce the need for chemicals on this area of campus!
This is a very basic overview, but even at a glance, anyone can see that harsh chemicals are not necessary in our fields. They do more harm than good, to the surrounding wildlife, to humans, and to profit in the long run. There are so many more options, as any article on regenerative agriculture can tell you, including no-till farming and polyculture, all of which contribute to carbon neutrality, avoiding hazardous chemicals, and creating safer environments for farmers and their neighbors.
As part of Herbicide-Free Campus, my intention is to participate in transitioning my school, Indiana University-Bloomington, away from the use of synthetic herbicides, and to spread awareness around the concept that our reliance on pesticides will only harm us, our loved ones, and our planet in the long run. To combat climate change and ensure we have a hospitable and biodiverse planet, we must transition our agriculture and landcare away from chemical intensive methods to ones that prioritize soil health, microbial diversity, planetary health and people over profit.