Monster Peppers
Will Never Use Pesticides!

Using pesticides is not sustainable

Pesticides are not a sustainable solution. It is a biological fact that living organisms will adapt in response to threats to their species’ survival. As a result, weeds, insects, and other pests will develop resistance to the chemicals that are designed to destroy them. Pesticides are effective only for a short time until the pests become resistant. Chemical companies must constantly develop new pesticides that are toxic to the target organisms in different ways. It cannot work in the long term.

Pesticides Come at cost that Our Planet can’t afford

Native wild pollinators, such as bumble bees and alfalfa leafcutter bees, also contribute substantially to the domestic economy. Help Bees. It’s really helpful that pepper plants can self pollinate, which is a wonderful trait to have in a world where pollinating insects are on the decline. Monster Peppers will not use any pesticides, because the collapse of insect populations can lead to the collapse of terrestrial ecosystems. That’s really bad news for the entire planet. INCLUDING YOU!

Scientists associate the dramatic decline of insect populations to climate change and agribusiness, due to the destruction of natural habitats, such as deforestation, with the application of heavy pesticide usage over the course of decades. The ongoing continuous use of pesticides is jeopardizing the health of our planet by hurting microorganisms, leaving the earth with degraded soil and water. If plants don’t have other organisms enriching the soil, the soil will suffer, thus hurting the plants in the long run. It’s going to take innovative thinking and for all of us to come together to help developed and developing countries rebuild the fertility of their degraded soil. Pesticides in your garden or farm, only invite death, not life into your soil. Pesticides hurt bacteria and other organisms, the very ones that soil needs in order to provide the food we want to grow. By using pesticides, we start a chain reaction of harm, causing soil degradation. The long term impacts of soil degradation results in increased carbon emissions, which contributes to climate change. Soil is a living, breathing system. Don’t take away other living organisms which are part of that system. They’re vital, working components that keep soil healthy and fertile.

If pesticides don't kill outright, they can cause other serious harm towards the health of the environment. Pesticides don’t just harm living beneficial organisms above but also below the ground. For instance, pesticides are reducing worms’ ability to reproduce. Certain insecticides that are not necessarily aimed at killing earthworms, may actually do exactly that. For example, Organophosphate insecticides are harmful to earthworms, as are carbamate based insecticides resulting in the death of birds and other critters. Sevin, a carbayl-based product used in gardens, and especially on their vegetable plants, kill a wide variety of insects.

No one likes small pest eating their crops, but why risk killing off any beneficial microorganisms in your garden? Worms create tunnels in the soil by burrowing, which aerates the soil to allow air, water and nutrients to reach deep within the soil. Worms break down organic matter, like leaves and grass, into things that will be recycled again for plants to use as food. When worms eat, they leave behind castings that are a very valuable type of fertilizer that contain many nutrients that plants can utilize. If plants don't get pollinated by insects, that means less diversity of food is being produced. Fruits and vegetables, which add diversity to the human diet and provide essential nutrients, tend to depend heavily on insects and pollinators. The decline of insects is scary. This would hurt all terrestrial ecosystems. Insects are the basis of the food network that supports the diet of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and help with the pollination of plants.

Pesticides are designed to kill unwanted pests, but their toxic properties and widespread use are also harming beneficial insects such as bees. There is no solid way to control the harm of pesticides. Honey bees enable the production of at least 90 commercially grown crops in North America. Globally, 87 of the leading 115 food crops evaluated are dependent on animal pollinators, contributing 35% of global food production. Pollinators contribute more than 24 billion dollars to the United States economy, of which honey bees account for more than 15 billion dollars through their vital role in keeping fruits, nuts, and vegetables in our diets.

What Are Pesticides?

Pesticides are any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest. The term pesticide also applies to insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, plant regulators, defoliants, and desiccants. Exposure to widespread pesticides has had tremendous ecological impacts over the years. The widespread use of agricultural chemicals in food production, may cause a number of health effects linked to a range of serious illnesses and diseases in humans. How much exposure to pesticide residues through diet or activity varies, but in terms of human health, pesticides are now linked to a range of health impacts, including increased risk of cancer, Parkinson’s disease, lower fertility and neurodevelopmental disorder such as lower IQ in humans. Pesticides are so wide spread around the world that it might be inescapable to find pesticides in all food products including in products label “organic”. (Them’s the breaks)

What Goes Into Making Pesticide Product?

When making a pesticide, different specialized sciences must come together in order to select the appropriate ingredients. Genomics is used to understand how the genes of crops and pest work and what are the critical points that target a pest, weed, or disease. Physiology and Biochemistry are used to understand what is going on inside the crop plant and inside the pest and diseases that are hurting the plant. Biokinetics helps to understand how the active ingredients will move through the plant, roots and leaves, and how to keep those active ingredients out of the fruit you would eat. Chemistry is used to design how to precisely target the molecules in the active ingredients to be exactly where they need to be be to do their job. You would think in theory, if you make a pesticide it would be safe for operators, consumers and the environment. However, from our understanding, the industry seems to only focuses on making profit by designing pesticide products to be effective, easy to use, and cost effective for farmers or people to use commercially. When it comes to health and safety, why is all that excessive protective gear? No such thing as safe pesticide.

Pesticide Particle & Vapor Drift

Pesticide drift is the airborne movement of pesticides from an area of application to any unintended site. Drift can happen during pesticide application when droplets or dust travel away from the target site. Some pesticides are more likely to drift in the form of vapor. This can happen after an application, even when the pesticide was applied as a solid or liquid. This is called “vapor drift,” and an important factor is the pesticide's vapor pressure. Children are especially vulnerable to these airborne pesticides, given that their young bodies are still growing and developing. Pesticide drift can pose health risks to people and house hold pets when sprays and dusts drift to nearby areas such as homes, schools, playgrounds and water sources.

Retention of pesticides in the soil

Pesticides can contaminate soil, water, turf, and other vegetation. In addition to killing insects or weeds, pesticides can be toxic to a host of other organisms including birds, fish, beneficial insects, and non-target plants. Retention refers to the ability of the soil to hold a pesticide in place and not allow it to be transported. Adsorption is the primary process of how the soil retains a pesticide and is defined as the accumulation of a pesticide on the soil particle surfaces. Pesticide adsorption to soil depends on both the chemical properties of the pesticide (i.e., water solubility, polarity) and properties of the soil (i.e., organic matter and clay contents, pH, surface charge characteristics, permeability). For most pesticides, organic matter is the most important property that controls the degree of adsorption which is described by an adsorption distribution coefficient (Kd). This is mathematically defined as the amount of pesticide in soil solution divided by the amount adsorbed to the soil.

Pesticide Laws and Regulations

In many developing countries, programs to control exposures are limited or non-existent. Before a pesticide can be distributed, sold, and used in the United States it must first go through a registration process through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The federal statutes that give the EPA the authority to regulate pesticides are the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA). The EPA is responsible for overseeing pesticides and set limits on how much residue is allowed on food. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) separately test fruits and vegetables for pesticides. Monster Peppers thinks these agencies, and in many cases the EPA, isn’t looking at the entire spectrum of possible harm that can be done to consumers.

New and proposed rules are published in the Federal Register and are then codified into the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).

• Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA): Gives the EPA authority to regulate the sale, use, and distribution of pesticides.

• Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA): Gives the EPA authority to set limits on the amount of pesticide residues allowed on food or animal feed. These limits are called tolerances.

In August 1996, Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), amending the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), both containing provisions calling for the screening and testing of chemicals and pesticides for possible endocrine disrupting effects. The 1996 law instructs the EPA to screen for endocrine-disrupting effects. It the year 2020, there has been only a completed full endocrine screenings on only 52 pesticides. There have been over 500 active pesticide ingredients used in agricultural applications in the USA since 1970, the year the EPA was formed. (Why and what have they been doing this whole time?)
You lose faith in the EPA when you hear news about pesticide harm towards the health of wild life and especially humanity health. If the EPA was not soft on the pesticide industry, these damages could be prevented. The big agriculture business model is not about safe growing practices, but rather making the pesticide that will later be used towards farming. When it comes to pesticide safety the EPA has zero credibility in the eyes of Monster Peppers, but perhaps that will change in time.

"Organic" pesticides

To promote “organic pesticides” while demonizing non-organic pesticides as environmentally damaging... really now... you serious? They’re still pesticides. The word 'organic' is perhaps the most misused and misunderstood word. Organic in scientific terms means a molecule that consists mainly of a carbon skeleton with other elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus and a few others as contributing building blocks. The majority of modern pesticide molecules are organic and fit in 100% with the scientific classification of organic. The so-called organic pesticides should thus definitely be called natural as they are also mostly organic (in scientific terms) but are strictly of natural origin. The classic pesticides that are often referred to as chemical pesticides are chemicals that are synthetic (such as organophosphates) or semi-synthetic (such as pyrethroids), whereas the natural pesticides are chemicals of a natural origin such as salts or fatty acids and plant oils. Some of the so-called organic pesticides contain active ingredients such as copper octanoate. Copper is inorganic and at best the product may be branded as organo-metallic. Copper is damaging to the environment, yet they are branded as environmentally friendly organic pesticides. Although fixed copper sprays are approved for organic orchards and gardens, they are harmful to humans, pets, and wildlife if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Copper sulfate and lime, or the Bordeaux mixture, is highly poisonous to bees. Excess toxic copper levels reduce seed germination, plant vigor, and iron intake. Neutralizing copper soil toxicity is extremely difficult once the problem occurs. Copper has low solubility, which enables it to persist in the soil for years.

Synthetic pesticides

Synthetic pesticides are products that are produced from chemical alteration. Synthetic pesticides are, in most cases, highly effective against the pests that they are registered for and are active for a certain length of time. The dangers of synthetic pesticides lie in their toxicity to life forms and their persistence in the environment. Note that different classes of synthetic pesticides have different toxicities towards different organisms and have a highly variable range of persistence in the environment. There is no such thing as an environmentally friendly pesticide; they are designed to kill and that is what they will do in varying degrees of efficacy. We should be concerned with biodiversity and that means all life forms and not just the birds and mammals. Pyrethroids, for example, may be quite soft on mammals and birds but this particular group of semi-synthetic pesticides is extremely toxic to insects, fish and amphibians. Organophosphate and carbamate groups of synthetic pesticides are extremely toxic to basically all forms of life, including human beings. Such products should never be used by the general consumer for around the home.

"Contains no chemicals"

Natural insecticides circulated in the market are often label as “safe”, “contains no chemicals”, and “harmless to children and pets or bees” are not only highly unethical but misleading the public. All pesticides are chemicals, yes even the natural ones. Natural pesticides refer to products that are derived strictly from sources in nature with little to no chemical alteration. Even natural fatty acids and plant oils such as canola and garlic oils are toxic to the environment because they kill invertebrates and aquatic organisms. The advantage of natural pesticides lie in their low toxicity to warm blooded creatures and fairly rapid decomposition; the latter characteristic may be construed to be a disadvantage as there is little or no residual action on their part. In most cases the application of natural pesticides is required more frequently than synthetic pesticides. A great disadvantage for the environment and for all garden biodiversity is to have to apply such a load of even a natural chemical. Using any pesticides, natural or synthetic, comes at cost towards our biodiversity. In many cases the lifespan of insecticides has not been assessed properly, so we don't even know how long they remain active in the environment and what their effects may be, yet producers claim rapid breakdown of the product.