A Precautionary Tale

by Philip Ackerman-Leist

  The provocateurs knew that the topic could quickly polarize their community, so they invited a moderator, Heidi Kessler, to help foster some balance in the presentation. In the end, not everyone was satisfied with the success of how the session was moderated. Representatives of the fruit industry made it clear that apples were a profitable crop that could be produced in ways that didn’t negatively impact the environment, and they reinforced the idea that apple farmers could be good neighbors. Apples offered an economic opportunity whose time had come.

  The audience, however, seemed to be especially appreciative of the perspective offered by Alexander, who eloquently advanced the position against further expansion into the Upper Vinschgau. He spoke of the trade-offs Mals was facing in yielding to the temptations of Big Apple, and he made it clear that the apple farmers from the lower reaches of the valley were laying the groundwork for moving in by setting up sprinkler irrigation networks in the coveted Malser Haide and elsewhere. The concrete posts, trellised trees, and hail nets were not far behind.

  But it was Alexander’s expression of a vision for a town that wholeheartedly embraced and supported sustainability that won the audience over: It was a positive vision of cultivating Paradise, in lieu of succumbing to the seduction of easily won wealth, with long-term consequences. Any return on investment in Big Apple meant no possibility of return to the riches already in hand. Alexander articulated the fact that Mals had something different to offer its inhabitants and tourists, something already lost by much of the rest of the region: a diverse and beautiful landscape, filled with traditional farms as well as a growing organic sector and burgeoning farm-to-plate initiatives. The local enterprises like his were still small in number and size, but he asserted that the opportunities were there to be seized.

  Some citizens of Mals believed that if they caved to the temptation of Big Apple, they would give up their collective birthright, with no chance of reclaiming it. Others felt that it was entirely up to farmers to determine what to do on their land, and it was no one else’s business what they chose to produce or how they produced it. With winners and losers becoming all the more apparent, it was a question of public trust and whom to trust in protecting it. Nonetheless, Alexander and his compatriots left feeling like a door had been opened. In Alexander’s view, “The goal of the discussion was to make the topic public, and we definitely succeeded. The discussion showed us that there is certainly room for different opinions.”1 Just as some farmers didn’t want their organic operations jeopardized by pesticide drift, other farmers felt that they had the right to pursue the lucrative path of conventional apple production that thousands of other farmers were already benefiting from in other parts of the South Tirol. Different ecological approaches yielded different economic perspectives.

  Over the coming weeks, Adam & Epfl’s fecundity became apparent. A diverse array of citizens began to gather around the idea of Paradies Obervinschgau, the Paradise of the Upper Vinschgau: from mayor to forester to biology teacher to university student to veterinarian to seedsaver and organic farmer, an alliance of Querdenkers was beginning to form. It was yet to be seen if Mals itself might be a town of Querdenkers—perhaps even a bastion of independence with the creativity and fortitude to take on powers much bigger than their covey of just over five thousand people. Even though hay was the impetus for a fomenting rebellion, pitchforks weren’t the first line of defense. Creative education and advocacy would have to suffice.

  Following the March meeting, the growing alliance of eclectic activists met half a dozen more times. They identified four key points of common interest: Gesundheit, Vielfalt, Regionales Wirtschaften, and Existenzsicherung. Health, diversity, a regional economy, and a secure future. It was a positive vision, one that contrasted dramatically with the hidden costs of biting into Big Apple, with its taste for toxins, monocultures, and vacillating international markets. Now that they had brought the issues out into the daylight, it was time to bring the discussion into the streets. The group organized an Action Day in June, filling the centuries-old streets of Mals with a five different conversation stations around the edges of the town center.

  The first station, set up at a popular café in the heart of the old village, featured the motif of Paradeis Obervinschgau. Adam & Epfl came into its own that day as a Bürgerinitiative, a citizens’ initiative. The gathering captured passersby who might never have attended a meeting featuring either an assemblage of eclectic personalities or politicians, and innocent queries turned into spontaneous opportunities to mitreden, to talk, with one another about everyone’s vision for the future of the town. In the courtyard behind the library, representatives from health and environmental organizations teamed together with organic farmers to discuss the health impact of different forms of agriculture at the second station. Organizers set up the third station focused on diversity amid the bustle of the town hall, featuring an exhibit of grain varieties from the Bernhards’ collection, information from regional seedsavers, a photo exhibition, and samples of international foods, as well as agricultural resources provided by the township. Participants then moved on to yet a historic weaving mill where a fourth station was dedicated to supporting local economies. At the last station, they encountered the looming question of how farmers might secure their existence and pass on the age-old farming traditions that had formed the fabric of Paradeis Obervinschgau. Hosted by farmers who represented the spectrum of possible philosophies and methods—ranging between organic and conventional—the gathering spot offered a sampling of not just food but also possibilities, and a spirit of hope.

  Adam & Epfl had found a way to avoid doomsday scenarios and polarizing rhetoric. Opting to promote a vision rather than denigrate viewpoints different from their own, they set the stage for dialogue instead of diatribe. That foundational approach would matter—and it would soon be tested. A lot of testing was about to happen.

  CHAPTER 7

  Organic Uprising

  “Teilweise gehört das Futter auf den Sondermüll.” In part, this feed belongs with the hazardous waste.

  With yet another full house packed into the Mals Kulturhaus, it was as if an electric shock jumped from one person to another in the elbow-to-elbow audience the night of November 3, 2011. Had the statement come from any local layperson weighing in on the supposed dangers of pesticides, it would have seemed mere conjecture, and heads would have shaken amid muffled murmurs and a few louder curses eking out in hard-hewn dialect.

  But the environmental group USGV had played their hand carefully. During the summer they’d sent the grass samples that they had collected from ten hay fields adjacent to orchards in the Upper Vinschgau to be tested and reviewed by Irene Witte, an internationally renowned toxicologist from the University of Oldenburg in Germany.

  They had Günther’s back. They had noticed the orchards that had appeared the year before, flanking his hayfields, along with others cropping up in and around Mals. With approximately 150 acres (60 ha) shifting to intensive fruit production in the Upper Vinschgau each year, Peter Gasser and his USGV colleagues knew precisely what was coming their way, and the only way to take a stand was to begin collecting and presenting empirical data.

  Deciding who should review and present that data was paramount, so they selected Witte, a researcher who had helped transform the field of toxicology in ways that paralleled the paradigm-bending work of Rachel Carson. In fact, Witte was awarded the Rachel Carson Medal for her pioneering research into the problematic effects of combined doses of chemicals, including even small doses of pesticides, and their relationship not only to traditional understandings of disease but also to the emerging field of genotoxicity, which explores how chemicals can mutate genes in cancer-causing ways.1

  Together with two of the regional organic associations, Bioland and the Bund Alternativer Anbauer (BAA), the USGV billed the forum in a way that reminded Malsers of how fragile Paradise can be: Wie belastet sind unsere Wiesen? Analyseergebnis
se von Heuproben im Vinschgau—How Polluted Are Our Meadows? Analysis Results from Hay Testing in the Vinschgau. Although every citizen in Mals wouldn’t agree on the future of agriculture in Mals, virtually everyone recognized hay meadows to be the keystone of the valley’s traditional agriculture. Any threat to the health and viability of those meadows was a threat to their way of life and their economic well-­being, particularly as it related to tourism.

  The results were chilling. Of the ten samples taken, all had pesticide residues and most contained five or more substances, including some samples of chlorpyriphos, a particularly toxic pesticide that is under serious scrutiny worldwide. Fungicides and insecticides such as copper, captan, and dithiocarbamates were detected, often at levels several times higher than allowed by law. Yet tests measuring levels of each pesticide only tell you if residues are present, Witte reminded the audience, and whether the substances have been applied within legal limits, not whether they are actually safe. Furthermore, she reiterated a central theme of her research over the years: “Some substances react chemically; the mixture is more poisonous than the sum of the individual effects.”2

  In an interview following the presentation, Witte and Peter Gasser both expressed their astonishment not only at the high concentration of pesticides found—well above legally acceptable levels—but also at the fact that some samples were contaminated with as many as ten different pesticides. It was the cocktails of multiple pesticides that worried Witte the most—and that focus had defined her career and, ultimately, her prestige, but not without earning her a fair share of detractors.3 Whereas most scientists earned their degrees, promotions, and reputations by singling out and studying particular toxins, Witte had taken a more challenging but critical approach: She focused her work on the complexities of chemical cocktails and their impacts. Not only do these chemical combinations appear to contribute to diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s, but they can also alter cells and even the human genome in ways that scientists are just beginning to unravel. Hence, the emerging discipline of genotoxicity —the study of the way chemicals damage genetic information within cells, causing them to die or mutate.

  In Peter’s view, the purpose of the conversations and the confrontations was to ensure that “the next twenty years don’t continue just the same way that the previous twenty years had.”4 While the science of the health impacts was far from complete, the dashboard indicators were perfectly clear: Continued velocity in the same direction would result in both anticipated and unexpected impacts.

  Sensing the growing discontent in Mals and its surroundings, the director of the Vinschgau apple growers’ cooperative, Josef Wielander, showed up for the presentation and offered his conciliatory perspective on behalf of his apple farmers that everyone would prefer to have food products with no signs of pesticide residues. He also made the point that some farmers were the “black sheep” in the apple industry who created problems for others, and those few bad actors shouldn’t be considered the norm. Apple farmers wanted to be good neighbors, and there was nothing to fear as they made their way into the upper reaches of the valley. In the end, he said, he believed that “every farmer must behave in such a way that the neighbors aren’t harmed.”5

  While most of the audience seemed to appreciate Wielander’s conciliatory approach, two distinct paths forward were nonetheless beginning to emerge among apple growers and apple opponents. Wielander and other conventional apple farmers thought the solution was to rethink and regulate buffers and spraying methods based on existing and forthcoming research.

  For Peter and many of his colleagues, however, the experiences and data from 2011 led them to a much different conclusion: Coexistence might not be possible, and an outright ban of pesticides might be the only way to protect organic and traditional farmers, not to mention the health of the citizens and tourists who valued Mals for what it was . . . and for what it could be.

  With each growing season for the past decade or so, the valley floor had begun to look more and more like a chessboard, and it was time to treat it as such. The Malsers decided to seize the advantage of making the first moves. Casual banter and commiserating would no longer suffice—it was time to get political.

  Outranked, outnumbered, and with all resources coming out of their own pockets, the Malsers could barely even be classified as underdogs. Generally more averse to regional politics than well versed in such games, they nonetheless had two advantages: The match would be played out on their home turf, and it would be a long time before the opposition would take them seriously. And, of course, if you’re new to a game, you just might play it a bit differently than anyone else.

  About the only thing of less interest to Günther than making the traffic-­filled three-hour drive to and from Bozen was getting into politics. However, after conferring with Uli—someone else who had never envisioned registering as a member of a political party, much less running for mayor—he decided to do what any rugged mountain farmer can do: find a path straight to the top.

  Günther put in a call to the office of the governor of the province, Luis Durnwalder, and asked for an appointment to discuss his predicament. A gutsy move, it was nonetheless in keeping with a long-standing tradition in the Tirol. Tirolean mountain farmers had long had a direct line to their political sovereigns.

  Mountain farmers, the Bergbauern, had been the fierce defenders of Tirolean culture and independence even before the Hapsburgs first took control of the area in the late fourteenth century. By no means submissive peasants, the Bergbauern gained even more notoriety and appreciation among the Hapsburg elite when they took on Napoleon’s forces in the early 1800s. Given their allegiance and the imperial imperative of controlling the resources and passages of the Alps, the Tirolean mountain farmers earned a special relationship with the Hapsburg emperor, addressing him by the informal Du form for “you,” in lieu of the formal Sie greeting.

  Wearing that mantle, Günther and other farmers in modern-day South Tirol are quite comfortable speaking to authority. In fact, as the primary landholders and the keepers of the region’s famous pastoral landscape, they often feel compelled to speak “truth” to power—although determining who holds the truth can also create problems of its own.

  Günther and his fellow citizens would discover soon enough that truth and power can be awkward bedfellows in a democracy.

  Günther set up an appointment with the governor for March 28, 2012. When the day finally came, he scrambled through his morning milking and jumped in his car to head eastward through the length of the Vinschgau Valley to the province capital of Bozen. As he sped down the valley, he was keenly attuned to the paradox of his drive. The dominance of apple production intensified with virtually every mile he drove, until orchards seemed to cover every square foot—not just of the valley floor but also of the lower slopes on either side of the valley. Indeed, sprawling apple storage facilities several stories in height were strategically placed at key production centers all along the 50-mile (80 km) stretch, many of them ultramodern in design and colorfully decorated with logos suggesting a harmony of culture and landscape.

  Günther couldn’t help but notice the occasional white mists that erupted out of the spring foliage of orchards and vineyards along the route. What had once seemed like everyone else’s issue with the upward march of apples now felt very personal. The clouds of pesticides that came with the territory at lower elevations now appeared to be coming after the territory in the Upper Vinschgau. Günther and his fellow Malsers were the last holdout for diversified agriculture in the valley, much less the only remaining location where organic could really take root and bear fruit, fruit of a much different sort.

  The provincial capital of Bozen, known as Bolzano by the Italians who make up the bulk of the city’s population, was the seat of economic as well as political power in the South Tirol. It was a place where farmers like Günther were praised in public and given front-page prominen
ce on tourist brochures, while the real cash cows were being tended behind the scenes.

  Finding your way from the industrial outskirts of Bozen to the old part of the city requires some careful negotiation of the modern maze surrounding it. Günther was driving headlong into a bureaucratic labyrinth he could barely have fathomed. He was hardly alone, though—the rest of the people in Mals were unsuspecting passengers in what would become a long journey.

  Not a frequent visitor to the provincial government offices, Günther negotiated the labyrinth of exit ramps and one-way streets until he found a parking garage near the governor’s office and began to make his way through the city’s moderate bustle. With about one hundred thousand inhabitants, Bozen seldom feels overwhelmingly busy, and clear-weather days slow everyone’s pace, as they take in sunshine and majestic views of terraced vineyards and even an occasional glimpse of the oldest inhabitants, the Dolomite Mountains that spire upward on the city’s eastern flank.

  The heaviness of Bozen’s mix of medieval and Fascist-era buildings is offset with cobbled sidewalks, brightly colored walls, and flowers tumbling from window boxes. Shaded sidewalks and the coolness of the gothic arches line the historic main shopping district and shelter an international mix of tourists and locals. As Günther passed, they were all savoring the local delights with the clink of porcelain and silverware and soaking up the sun’s spring rays.