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.
These are landmark cases. The paraquat case rubbed a raw nerve of environmentalists and medical experts. It is certain to spur more lawsuits against Bayer, probably hundreds. Mr Johnson's case was the first to actually go to trial alleging a glyphosate link to cancer. Similar suits are on the horizon against Bayer and its subsidiary Monsanto. Farmers and consumers also will likely increase legal pressure against Dow Chemical and other manufacturers and marketers of chlorpyrifos.
Technically, none of the above affects Thailand. In reality, the two court cases will bring further pressure on the government, all the way up to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. The Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives have hemmed and hawed on demands that both chemicals be banned because of their toxicity, and both their known and suspected danger to humans.
The Department of Agriculture, unfortunately, has not just allowed continuing use of these popular weed-killer and pesticide products; it has strongly lobbied to keep them legal. As recently as two months ago, the Office of the Prime Minister chose to ignore a petition signed by 686 activist networks demanding a ban. Until today, paraquat and chlorpyrifos remain the two most-used chemical farming products of their type.
After Friday's jury order to cut Mr Johnson an eye-watering cheque for his suffering, Bayer unsurprisingly announced it would appeal. And the basis of its appeal is simple: Paraquat does not cause cancer -- and this is the important part -- "when used as recommended". This is the same defence that the DoA and, ultimately, the Prime Minister's Office use.
Perhaps it's even true. Legally and scientifically, Bayer is in a bind because it can't prove a negative. But here is the rub. In Thailand, neither paraquat nor chlorpyrifos is used as recommended. Indeed, they are indisputably used more often, in greater amounts than advised.
By refusing to ban these two toxic and likely damaging, death-causing chemicals, the government is on the wrong side. The makers and consumers may battle in court over the minutiae of the details. But truth is that paraquat and chlorpyrifos are too dangerous to continue to allow in Thai fields.