Nicholas Hill  0:00  
You're listening to acts of impact the show where we interview organizations and individuals to learn about the positive contributions they are making around us. On today's show, we interview with Friends of the Earth to hear about their work, eliminating the use of pesticides to create a sustainable and just food system. We'll discuss the challenges facing pollinators such as bees and birds, the dangerous chemicals and commonly sold products that are to blame, and how we as consumers can make more environmentally friendly decisions. We'll round up all of the facts right after this.

Hello, and welcome to acts of impact. I'm your host, Nicholas Hill, and we're here with today's guest, Paolo Mutia. Paolo serves as food and agriculture campaigner for Friends of the Earth, where he continuously elevates campaigns to eliminate the use of toxic pesticides and create a sustainable and just food system. Paolo, welcome to the show. 

Paolo Mutia  1:16  
Yeah, thanks for having me. 

Nicholas Hill  1:18  
Yeah, absolutely. And for our listeners, can you start by just telling us a little bit about Friends of the Earth? What is the mission of the organization? And how do you personally fit into the team there? 

Paolo Mutia  1:32  
Sure. Well, Friends of the Earth us is one chapter in the Friends of the Earth Federation, which spans more than 70 chapters worldwide. So in the United States, we have a base of over 2 million people nationally, and Friends of the Earth or fop for short, we fight for a more healthy and just world by promoting clean energy, sharing climate change solutions, protecting ecosystems, and those who live and work near them. And also ensuring that the food and products we consume are safe and sustainable. So we organize to build long term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that really create injustice and destroy our environment, specifically, the corporate pesticide industry, you know, they have saturated our environment with billions of pounds of toxic pesticides each year. And they've used their huge influence to block these fundamental protections for people and our environment. And so my team specifically, we work to advocate for a shift towards a healthy and sustainable food agriculture system. We're looking to change entire systems. So that means we're looking to speak truth to power, getting as high in the chain as possible. And speaking to federal and state agencies, you name it. So we inform our members and allies about issues and we aim to be a vehicle of change, applying pressure at the highest levels. 

Nicholas Hill  2:57  
Yeah, and I want to talk a little bit about the two campaigns that you're specifically focused on because the overall goal that that you kind of hone in on is saving Earth's pollinators. And maybe for our listeners, before we dive into that, can you just quickly define kind of what a pollinator is. 

Paolo Mutia  3:20  
So pollination happens when pollen is moved within flowers are created from flower to flower by pollinating animals that includes birds, bees, butterflies, and that transfer of pollen in between flowers is what leads to fertilization is what leads to the seed and fruit production for the plants. So without pollinators like bees, grocery stores would run short of a wide assortment of fruits and vegetables, nuts, beans, and of course, everyone's favorite chocolate and coffee. And also because bees pollinate alfalfa and other crops that cows eat, even the dairy and meat cases would look better.

Nicholas Hill  3:59  
I know that, you know, before 2020 If I go back in time, a few years, I remember, before the pandemic was on the top of everyone's mind, this issue was getting a lot of traction. I remember hearing about the endangerment of the bees specifically and what that would mean for our food system and what was happening there. Can you remind our listeners kind of what harm these pollinators are facing? And ultimately, what's causing it? 

Paolo Mutia  4:33  
Of course, I mean, scientists around the world are warning that we are in the middle of an insect apocalypse. Due to a large part of toxic pesticides in our food and agriculture system, and bees and other pollinators. They're responsible for one in three bites of the food that we eat, and they're definitely in great peril because of the toxic pesticides. And many of these same pesticides also harm our health, human health. Yeah, so

Nicholas Hill  5:00  
So we know Paulo, that this is a big problem as you just mentioned, it's not only harming the pollinators, but it's also a risk to human health as well. I'd love to talk about the two campaigns that you primarily focus on right now. And the first campaign is one that you have towards Kroger grocery stores. Your team is demanding that Kroger step up to protect pollinators. Can you give us some of the context there? 

Paolo Mutia  5:31  
Of course, so Friends of the Earth and our allies, we're leading a campaign to push Kroger and many of the other large US grocery retailer stores to save bees and other beneficial insects that help farmers grow food. And so that starts with ending the use of pollinator toxic pesticides in their supply chains and increasing bee friendly organic offerings. And not only is this necessary for our food, future security, it's critical for grocery retailers bottom line, many of the same pesticides in Kroger's supply chain that threaten beasts are also linked to harm human health. So we've done independent testing before that found that Kroger store brand foods are contaminated with pesticide residues that includes glyphosate, organophosphates, and neonicotinoids. These tested foods include foods that kids and families typically eat that includes cereal, apples, applesauce, spinach, and pinto beans. But there is some good news. Kroger did take an important first step and they established pollinator health policy back in 2019. But that policy that they created didn't have any measurable targets to reduce pesticides, or expand organic and other ecological farming methods in their supply chain. And as a result, Kroger dropped from seven down to 12 place on this year's bee friendly retailer scorecard that we create, we grade 25 of the largest US food retailers on protecting pollinators from pesticides. And so now Kroger falls behind competitors like Costco, Albertsons, and even dollar tree. So this year, we look forward to continuing to be in dialogue with Kroger as they have pledged to develop a new sustainable agriculture commitment just recently. And then moving forward. You know, Kroger could follow the lead of other companies like giant eagle and Walmart, which recently made time bound commitments to protect pollinators. And to further speak on that giant eagle, for example, will eliminate the most concerning be toxic neonic pesticides in its produce supply by 2025. And some of these pesticides are NIDA, corporate, lofi, iodin and thiamethoxam. And these chemicals have already been banned in Europe, but they're still allowed in the US. And that's unfortunate. And both Giant Eagle and Walmart will require produce growers to start using ecological farming methods such as the Integrated Pest Management by 2025. And back it up with third party certification. So there's some things that you know Kroger could follow.

Nicholas Hill  8:02  
It's really interesting that you have a list of retailers that consumers can leverage to see kind of where, where they should be shopping, or places that might be a little bit more pollinator friendly. And when we last spoke, you talk to me a little bit about the challenges that consumers face when it comes to navigating product selection, because you just mentioned a bunch of chemical names, right? That for me, as a consumer, I'm might not always be looking out for I might not even know what they are. And so I could imagine if I'm a consumer trying to navigate product selection, this could be a little bit tough. Can you elaborate on how your team thinks about those challenges and how you might try to make those easier for the consumers? 

Paolo Mutia  8:54  
Yeah, so let's talk a little bit more about you know, what consumers are facing. So you know, in 2020, consumers spent about 60% of their grocery stores in physical stores. It's more difficult to research a product when you're you know, at the store and when you're shopping online just sitting at your home and that average can household consumer you know, they move from aisle to aisle fill their cart with products and exit the store within about 45 minutes. They find the products they want or need on the shelf and they might check the expiration date or costs and they might read the packaging or you know any allergens or toxins that they might be you know, wary of. And so now you know summer is in full swing and many homeowners have been obsessing over their lawns and have applied pounds of toxic chemicals to get that you know lush green lawn look. But each year about 80 million pesticides are sprayed on us lawns and everyone wants that nice green lawn but not many people think about all the chemicals hidden underneath that. So let's take a further look at the consumer market and when it comes to reducing the use of toxic pesticides like Roundup, for example, consumers really can make a significant difference. The US Fish and Wildlife Service's noted that homeowners use up to 10 times more chemical pesticides per acre on their lawns than farmers use on their crops. But you know, interestingly love despite the fact that glyphosate is the most widely use weed killer on the planet, the fact that it's the subject of more than 100,000 lawsuits in the US, and the fact that scientists all over the world have been warning of this for decades, that, you know, glyphosate, glyphosate exposure could cause cancer and other human health problems. 81% of North Americans said that they've never heard of it. And that's concerning. So I think that consumers are burdened by the need to, you know, self educate if they want to know about the toxicity of pesticide products they buy. And the reality is that most consumers don't have the time or access to do so. So our team at Friends of the Earth, we help consumer self educate in these areas, we've worked with a nonprofit called Beyond pesticides before in analyzing the toxicity of many of the herbicide products are sold at Home Depot and Lowe's, for example. 

Nicholas Hill  11:04  
You mentioned that homeowners use up to 10 times more pesticides than someone on a farm. And that statistic actually surprises me. Is that because you think that, you know, maybe a homeowner isn't as concerned with kind of the cost because they're only using pesticides on a small part of their lawn? Or why do you why do you think that is

Paolo Mutia  11:28  
so many of the pesticides that are used, you know, especially to keep your lawns green, many of those are herbicides, like Roundup, for example. So when you think about the consumer market, you know, the folks using that want to know that green lawn look. And of course, glyphosate is going to be the product that's going to be shown, you know, front and center when you immediately when you go to Home Depot and Lowe's. So it's not that surprising that the consumer market is really being coming saturated, you know, with the idea that, you know, this is the product to get your green lawns. And it's not surprising that, you know, it's showing up more and more terms of usage and farmers using their crops. 

Nicholas Hill  12:07  
And that kind of leads me to the second campaign that you're working on, which you had you mentioned it a second ago, but it's towards Lowe's and Home Depot. And specifically, you're working towards getting these two stores, which, you know, they're the stores that everybody thinks of when you think about home improvement. They're the largest home improvement stores in the US. And your goal is to get them to stop selling Roundup, and we've talked about that brand, specifically a few times now. Can you just elaborate it what is Roundup? Why is it specifically that you're trying to stop the sell of Roundup? 

Paolo Mutia  12:46  
Sure, sure. So one Lowe's and Home Depot continue to sell glyphosate, and that's the active ingredient in bears Roundup. And so they're putting millions at risk of this toxic weed killer because the World Health Organization has already noted that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen. Roundup is the most applied herbicide in the entire world. And due to public pressure, just recently in activism and lawsuits against Bayer, the manufacturer of Roundup, that company has announced that they're going to reformulate roundup by replacing glyphosate with an alternative ingredient for the US consumer market by 2023. And that's, you know, that's a positive step, but the health of people and pollinators cannot wait. There's no guarantee that a bay or the manufacturer will replace glyphosate with a safer chemical, and a process known as regrettable substitution. The replacements for high profile chemicals of concern like glyphosate are often as toxic as the original chemical. So it's crucial that Home Depot and Lowe's really step up to ensure that once Roundup is reformulated, it's a genuinely safe alternative for their consumers. And so some of the harms, you know, for glyphosate, one, you know, the big one is it's a probable human carcinogen that's been declared by who. But in addition to cancer, exposure to glyphosate has been associated with endocrine disruption, DNA damage, shorten pregnancy, reproductive harm, and disruption to your gut microbiome. And so there's a huge amount of factors you know, that it could affect for human health. And beyond human health concerns. Glyphosate is a primary driver of the decimation of Monarch Butterfly populations, because it destroys to milkweed plants that they're young depend on and has also been linked to be the clients. And so an EPA recent assessment found that it is likely to harm or kill 93% of endangered plants or animals in the US. 

Nicholas Hill  14:41  
You've also spoken a little bit earlier about nerve toxins, which I believe you called a neonicotinoid. And the work that the EPA has done and still needs to do to regulate these Can you elaborate on that a little bit? What what is the neonicotinoid and And what are some of the campaigns that you're focused on to tackle them? 

Paolo Mutia  15:05  
Sure. So neonicotinoids or neonics, for short. There are three things that you should know about it. And so one neonics are phenomenally harmful to the environment. They've made us agriculture 48 times more harmful to insects since they were introduced back in the 1990s. In fact, the coding of just one unit coded seed has enough Munich active ingredient to kill a quarter million bees. So second, neonics are everywhere from farm fields to golf courses to gardens, and they stay in the soil for years, and they move easily with rainwater. So they spread out to contaminate new soil, water and plants. And the concerning thing is that once the plants soak up the new next through their roots, the whole plant, you know, the stem, the leaves, the pollen, nectar, the fruit, all of that becomes toxic. And then third nunik exposure raises concern, you know, for human health, next are neurotoxins. So that's that means that they're designed to attack nerve sites that also appear in human nerve cells. So according to the CDC, half of the US population is regularly exposed to new Yonex. They show up in the urine of 1000s of Americans tested with the highest level showing up in children. And now that human health, you know, research has linked neonics with potential harms to people that includes malformations of the developing heart and the brain also. And so let's talk about what the EPA has done. Just last month, the EPA released its final Endangered Species Act bio biological evaluations for three neonicotinoid insecticides, that includes specifically clothing, I didn't mean to close it and thiamethoxam. And this determination marked the first time that EPA has gone through an assessment of the impacts of new annex on endangered species, the EPA found that each nunik is likely to adversely affect about two thirds, three fourths of America's endangered species. So that's about 1200 1400 species and all. And what they found was really, you know, nothing new. And so what many activists have been warning us about is that new NICs are really causing significant harm not just to bees, but to the vast majority of all endangered species. And this information really should result in the Unix being banned as they already are in Europe. 

Nicholas Hill  17:19  
Why is it that you think suppliers and retailers are reluctant to reduce these as fast as needed now that we know how harmful they are? Is it just because they're really good at creating green lawns? I mean, like what is the what is the trade off that people are having to face with reducing these on their shelves? 

Paolo Mutia  17:42  
So there's been some good progress that we've done already on neonicotinoids. On the front for the market campaigns, we originally pushed on Ace Hardware to get rid of Munich's in their supply chain. And we've done that that was a success, and Home Depot and Lowe's are close to clearing out new annex in their US supply chain. What's hard, you know, is the policy happening at the federal level? You know, because we didn't have the guidance of the EPA like this. This was just recent, from what I said about the EPA, we didn't have this guidance back then, you know, and so it fell down to the state's doing their own local policy work. And that became, you know, a series of patchwork and hoping, you know, we would pass a specific bill to ban new annex just recently in New York, but that didn't pass. But we're hoping for a domino effect eventually to fall forward, you know, and create some real legislation nationally, you know, to ban Unix, 

Nicholas Hill  18:42  
what are some of the things that your team does in order to affect this change? So you've talked a little bit about, you know, you originally got Ace Hardware to get rid of neonicotinoids in their supply chain, and now kind of Home Depot and Lowe's. But how do you do that? Do you? Are you sending letters to the board? Are you you know, what are some of the ways that you're pushing for that change? 

Paolo Mutia  19:11  
Yeah, yeah. So a big, big pressure point that we do each year is the shareholder meetings that happen. So for example, for Home Depot and Lowe's, they usually hold there's during May. And we have a coalition of over 2 million people. So imagine if we, you know, got a bunch of Collins did a bunch of us letters to send out to store managers, that really creates an impact on you know, the local stores at Home Depot that eventually escalates down to the headquarters. And we even do stunts where it's been a little bit hard during the COVID pandemic. We do stunts where you know, we will get a mobile billboard or news or targeted ads, you know, against Home Depot and Lowe's. And we're really hoping that Home Depot and Lowe's notices us and gets the attention that hey, your consumers do not want roundup right now on your shelves. You It is a, you know, probable carcinogen. And it's been, you know, linked to cancer. And we, you know, with our allies, in our nonprofit olise, we push during the shareholder meetings to get our questions answered. And that, you know, creates, you know, strong grassroots pressure to really push on Home Depot and Lowe's to listen to their consumers and to get rid of Roundup finally, you know, and so that's, you know, what we've done this past couple of months. 

Nicholas Hill  20:31  
Wow, that's great. And if I'm someone that is listening in, you know, we've heard a little bit about the challenges that your team is fighting to address, and some of the ways that you do that. And we've talked about the two campaigns, the campaign for Home Depot and Lowe's with round up the campaign for Kroger's to up their policies and to be more stringent. What is something that someone listening could do to help with these campaigns either directly, or just more generally, to affect change in creating a more sustainable food system? 

Paolo Mutia  21:07  
Yeah, we're confident that with smart strategies, and a growing and a coalition and a growing base of dedicated grassroots supporters that we can find this balance and make major progress and save the small but essential pollinators. So you can join us and you can sign up for our action alerts. I organized the week of actions for Kroger and Home Depot and Lowe's. But there are a variety of other campaigns happening at Friends of the Earth, not just on food and agriculture, but also on climate, also an ocean. So there's a variety of, you know, interests that you might be interested in that you could participate. You can volunteer from actions such as signing a petition, delivering letters to your store manager or doing a call and and many more. And by signing up for our alerts, you'll get information to protect the health of the environment, but also to inform yourself and protect your own health.

Nicholas Hill  21:58  
I'm curious if I'm someone who's been buying round up for my lawn, is there an alternative that you would recommend you know, something that I could go get instead that might help me with my lawn or my landscaping or maintenance?

Paolo Mutia  22:15  
 Yes, I would refer you to remember where we did the toxicity analysis. We worked with beyond pesticides to look at not just the toxic herbicides that they're, you know, shells, but also the organic alternatives, you know, that are being offered in terms of herbicides. So, you know, looked at look at our website, please feel free to take a look at that. And you'll find a link to our toxicity analysis of all the herbicides Sold at Home Depot and Lowe's, and then you can make the decision that's best for you, you know, and what you want to buy. So, you know, there is hope science shows that eating organic food dramatically reduces exposure to pesticides and food, and it helps bees and other beneficial insects flourish. That's because organic farmers are prohibited from using over 900 Pesticides otherwise allowed in agriculture. Instead, they work with nature to keep crops healthy and manage pests. And each day we're seeing more and more people urging stores like Kroger to protect bees and other pollinators. And according to recent polling that we commission 74% of Americans believe that grocery store should support efforts to protect pollinators and 83% believe that it's important to eliminate pesticides that are harmful to pollinators from agriculture. And in the bigger scheme of things, you know, we have a lot of work to do. As the pesticide industry is doubling down on their lobbying efforts and public relations tactics and have significant influence on major retailers. You know, we need to be smart, strategic and highly organized to defeat the deep pockets and tactics of the pesticide industry and win big commitments from retailers. 

Nicholas Hill  23:51  
Well, Paulo, I just want to say thank you for volunteering your time to talk with us and really for everything that Friends of the Earth and your team is doing in improving the environment. I really appreciate you bringing your expertise and and talking with us today. 

Paolo Mutia  24:09  
Thanks so much for having me.

Nicholas Hill  24:25  
Today's show was directed and produced by me with music from Alex Grohl special thanks to our guests for their time and insight. If you like today's episode, please follow us wherever you listen to podcasts, and consider leaving a review as it will help us to spread the word about the show. You can view more information about today's episode online at acts of impact.com Thank you for listening