Two court cases last week in California are set to affect and perhaps change the future of Thai farming. The legal decisions are stark. Courts and a jury ruled that two of the most popular chemical products used in Thai agriculture pose huge risks to humans even in tiny quantities. One causes irreparable damage in babies' brains. The other is carcinogenic. It is exactly what Thai campaigners have been saying in an effort to eliminate the two products.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to remove chlorpyrifos from sale in the United States within 60 days. This is a pesticide, used worldwide except in a few dozen countries where it is banned. There is no doubt about its effectiveness as an insecticide; chlorpyrifos is one of the best ever. Also, said the majority of the US judges, it is not doubted that exposure to the tiniest remnants of chlorpyrifos in their diet harms the brains of babies.
The second case involved paraquat, also known as glyphosate. This toxic chemical, also in wide use by farmers in Thailand, is a highly effective herbicide. It kills weeds faster and for longer periods than pretty well anything ever brought to market, thus making farmers' lives easier. As a side effect, paraquat causes cancer. At least that is what a California jury found in a decision last Friday. It ordered paraquat makers and marketers Bayer pharmaceutical group to pay DeWayne Johnson, a medical victim, $298 million (just under 10 billion baht). That was compensation and punishment for causing his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma when he used Bayer's RangerPro home weed killer.
