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Tackling and Preventing the Problem
around critical indicators. At the policy level, more and more multidisciplinary evidence is needed on the physical and socioeconomic impacts of sector structures and practices, as well as on the effectiveness of different interventions, to both prioritize and manage interventions. Investments in the generation and use of such evidence are needed to learn, adapt, monitor efficacy, and innovate continuously in the course of implementing policies to make the best use of scarce time and resources. Indeed, in all three study countries, significant data and evidence gaps exist at every step of the causal chain that relates farm management activities to their effects on soil, water, and air, and their many socioeconomic impacts (see figure 2.2). Box 2.10 provides examples of where data and evidence were found to be lacking in the Philippines. Figure 2.2 Causal Chain from Farm Management to Pollution Impacts
Farming activities
Physical impacts on environment (air-soil-water)
Socioeconomic impacts (human health-wildlife ecosystems-industry)
More generally: • Annual time series on the use of agro-inputs, including pesticides, drugs, chemical treatments, and plastics, and on methods for agricultural residue and manure disposal, are not uniformly available and often are completely missing. This situation sometimes stems from the wielding of political influence (which is likely the case in the large export-oriented plantation areas of the Philippines on which data are unavailable to researchers). • The measurement of ambient air quality and the detection of pollutants in surface waters and groundwaters are uneven across the East Asia region and within countries, with some cities and bodies of water receiving more attention than others. • The range of pollutants for which measurements are taken is sometimes incomplete, such as for pesticides in Vietnam. • Measurements largely remain ad hoc and are not carried out by public authorities on a systematic basis for a full range of pollutants. • The detection of pollutants in living organisms is even more limited, and evidence on their long- and short-term effects on the health of these organisms, or on population dynamics in the case of wildlife, remains thin, despite the growing number of studies on these topics.18 • The effects of agricultural pollution on the economy—whether mediated by its effects on health, labor, the natural resource base, or the quality and safety of food—have been the subject of few national studies. Put differently, little work has been undertaken to translate the impacts of polluting practices and discharges into socioeconomic terms. The Challenge of Agricultural Pollution • http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-1201-9