In Nanacamilpa, Calpulalpan and Españita, west of Tlaxcala, to cultivate the land you have to wait for what the sky dictates. The farmers' worldview says that plantations begin on March 21 with the arrival of spring and that it will be the rains of this season that will allow cultivation.
The main crop is native corn, although beans, beans, squash, wheat and maguey are also planted. They even preserve weeds, commonly known as “weed” or “weed”, which in other types of agriculture are eliminated with pesticides.
Growing diverse crops in the same field (polyculture) and not using pesticides seemed like the counterpart of modern agriculture. Unlike the industrial work that is carried out in avocado monocultures in Jalisco or the extensive soybean plantations in Campeche to generate large productions, in these municipalities of Tlaxcala a variety is planted to consume and trade independently.
Pánfilo Hernández Ortíz, a farmer from the town of Vicente Guerrero, municipality of Españita, remembers that, before he was born, the concern for better crop management began among the peasants in his municipality. In the search, they had an exchange with communities in Guatemala, where they heard for the first time about agroecology. It was the 80s.
Agroecology is a type of land management “compatible with the environment”, explains Hernández Ortíz. One of its principles is to avoid the use of pesticides.
When there is a plague, such as that of chapulines they had years ago, they don't bathe the crops with pesticides. Instead, they learned the life cycle of chapulín and implemented a management plan to allow them to feed on the weeds that grow on the banks of the plots.
They have also developed techniques to improve soil fertility through ditches, whose unevenness stores water and, with it, the soil's moisture.
“Fertilizers and pesticides are concepts that are most commonly used in industrial, conventional, and agribusiness agriculture,” says Pánfilo Hernández, who belongs to the Vicente Guerrero Integral Rural Development Project, better known as Grupo Vicente Guerrero, made up of local and surrounding farmers who are under the productive management of agroecology.
Last March, the federal government announced that it was delaying the suspension of glyphosate, one of the agrochemicals contained in pesticides that has been scientifically studied for its harm to health and the environment.
In a joint statement, the secretariats of Economy (SE), Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), Agriculture and Rural Development (Sader) and the Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks (Cofepris) argued that alternatives to the use of glyphosate in Mexican agriculture did not yet exist.
“We have to take into account the contexts. It's not a recipe,” Pánfilo Hernández agrees that other communities can adapt their management of the field to agroecology.
However, he points out that localities implement alternatives. As in Tlaxcala, there are also those in Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Michoacán, and even Pánfilo's colleagues have agreed with farmers in countries such as Nicaragua where agroecology is applied.
Nine thousand pesticides
When the Mexican government decided to postpone the glyphosate ban, it argued that it would “continue to search for a low-toxic herbicide alternative.”
The ban had been in place since the previous year. In 2023, a decree came into force prohibiting the purchase, sale and import of glyphosate as of April 1, 2024.
“The first thing to say is that there is no 'the' alternative. It's not about changing one chemical herbicide for another, but about changing the management strategy and that starts by conceptualizing the problem in another way,” says Fernando Bejarano, director of the Action Network on Pesticides and Alternatives in Mexico (Rapam).
Glyphosate was invented in 1975 by the company Monsanto. Since then, it has been the most used herbicide in agriculture, forestry and even in activities such as gardening. However, its long-term effects are linked to cancer, congenital malformations, and damage to the liver, kidneys and nervous system.
Currently, 9,552 pesticides circulate in Mexico, according to the Cofepris Health Registries of Pesticides, Plant Nutrients and MRL.
Of the total, 180 contain glyphosate, which represents 1.8%, despite being one of the most used. However, it is not the only one. Atrazine, marketed in 170 pesticides; ammonium glufosinate, in 68 products; paraquat, in 94; and 2,4-D, in 230 pesticides, have also been studied for their toxicity levels.
“It's a problem because it's not publicly accessible to know how much, when and where (agrochemicals) are used. It is an absence that we think should be improved with a national system of public access to know the use of pesticides, especially those that are highly dangerous, and then to be able to monitor community commitments to reduce the use of these pesticides,” adds Bejarano.
Talk about mixes
“What we have detected at the laboratory level with different test systems is that it's not just one compound (glyphosate) that causes the damage, it's the mixture with others,” explains Julieta Castillo, a researcher at the Genetics Laboratory of the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (UAEMex), who has been working for years studying the effects of agrochemicals on workers.
In the center of the country, the State of Mexico has a variety of more than 100 flowers. This has positioned the entity as one of the main producers in floriculture that, unlike agriculture, cannot replace its workers with automated activities. From planting to harvest, the work is manual.
Production is concentrated to the south, in the municipalities of Villa Guerrero, Tenancingo and Coatepec Harinas, where chrysanthemum, gladiola, carnation and rose crops stand out.
“In greenhouses, liters of the compound in question are fumigated, which are usually mixtures of pesticides... Those who apply the fumigation eventually wear a cap or an apron as basic equipment, but those who are doing other activities are wearing nothing. The point is that they fumigate the plant, but also the entire gang of workers that are out there,” describes researcher Castillo.
As part of the studies he has carried out, Castillo highlights genotoxic damage, which refers to damage to DNA. One of them is the malformations in the chromosomes which, among the many disorders, acquire a structure different from the normal one.
“For each of these events, a mutation emerges without being able to specify whether it is favorable or unfavorable for the cells,” says the researcher.
In addition, studies have also demonstrated damage to reproductive capacity. In men, there is a drop in sperm with multiple morphological changes, which is reflected in fertility. While in other cases, congenital malformations arise, which have been increasingly common in Mexican municipalities such as Villa Guerrero.
According to research, the effects also depend on the conditions. In the case of the State of Mexico, flower growers who work in small spaces without protective clothing and using pesticide mixtures have been studied. However, this does not negate the harm that farmers who work in large monocultures in the agricultural industry may experience.
A clean field
A problem derived from the use of agrochemicals has been waste management. Pesticides are sold in plastic containers that, without adequate treatment, end up in soils and bodies of water causing damage to the environment.
In Mexico, there is the General Law for the Prevention and Management of Waste, which in 2011 resulted in a management plan focused on agrochemicals. One of the programs dedicated to this area is that of Campo Limpio, part of Amocali A.C., a civil association created by the manufacturers of these products.
Clean Field is based on a management plan similar to the guidelines of Semarnat and the Code of Conduct of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
This plan includes phases such as a triple post-use wash to eliminate waste, the deposit in collection centers, the packaging of the containers and the final destination that allows the generation of raw materials to be made to make new ones. As for collection centers, there are 71 in total, although they are not always sufficient.
“As of today, we have realized that the legislation has remained generic,” says engineer Víctor Celaya, general director of Amocali A.C., who points out that in Mexico laws have allowed waste management to be more a matter of will than of obligation.
“If you observe legislation such as Brazilian or Spanish legislation, 99% of the obligated subjects participate. That is a topic. The other issue is that the law did not require the user to have a verification receipt for when they purchased it and a verification receipt for when they returned it,” explains Celaya.
The result is that currently only 25 out of every 100 containers of agrochemicals can be recovered per year. A significant but distant figure from countries such as Spain, which recovers 74 and Brazil, 95, according to Amocali A.C.
While with regard to distributors, they only have 40 members of the program compared to the more than 2,300 that exist throughout the country.
Víctor Celaya says that Amocali A.C. has no position on the use of pesticides, since they are considered only a waste management mechanism. However, he assures that they support what is scientifically proven. They even have agreements with universities to share an environmental vision of packaging management to degrees related to the agricultural sector.
While the ban on glyphosate is pending, in Nanacamilpa, Calpulalpan and Españita, west of Tlaxcala, agroecological alternatives are being implemented to cultivate the land, whether there is a law or not.
“Here in Tlaxcala, we have seen herbicides in monocultures or in crops where they don't practice cultural practices,” says Pánfilo Hernández Ortíz.
For his part, Fernando Bejarano believes that beyond the prohibitions, what is really necessary is to change the way we see and manage the field. Starting with weeds or “weeds”, some of these are edible, such as quelites or purslane.
“Thinking that there is only one harmful product and not modifying any of the handling is a wrong approach. It is a question of changing crop management to also recover biodiversity and increase productivity, strengthening soil biological fertility. Not finding another pesticide that kills with the same effectiveness,” Bejarano points out.
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