My father flew airplanes applying agricultural chemicals for 25 years from 1944 to 1969. It never was his only job. He also flew charter flights, air ambulance, search and rescue, aerial photography and other jobs. He sold fuel, performed maintenance and sold airplanes. During the latter part of those years he also had a farm supply store and sold farm machinery. In terms of aerial applicators, he was a pretty small operator. At the height of his business he had three airplanes spraying chemicals. Most of the time he only had two. In the entire span of his business he only had one Piper Pawnee, an airplane designed specifically for the application of chemicals. His other airplanes were Piper Super Cubs that could carry only small amounts of chemical.

The good news is that he operated his aerial application business for a quarter of a century without serious injury to himself or any of his pilots - a rare feat in a business that had a very high accident rate. As an aerial applicator, there was only one insurer in the world, Lloyds of London, who would underwrite life insurance for him. He attended the funerals of a lot of other pilots. The bad news is that there is a distinct possibility that his continued exposure to chemicals over the span of his career contributed to the cancer that ended his life as a relatively young man.

He applied herbicides on Montana wheat fields and sprayed pesticides to kill insects such as mosquitos and alfalfa weevil. His largest customer, however, was not any individual farmer, but rather the United States Government, specifically the USDA Forest Service. He sprayed herbicides on areas where new trees were to be planted to kill tree and plant species that were determined to be competitors to the new evergreen seedlings. And he sprayed pesticides on the forest in attempts to control forest pests, much of it part of an attempt to control western spruce budworm, at the time the most widely spread forest defoliator. Among the products he applied were 2, 4, 5-T and 2, 4-D, the chemicals in agent orange. He also applied dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT. The latter chemical is colorless, tasteless, and almost odorless. When he started applying it on government contract it was touted as harmless to humans.

DDT, of course, became infamous for its environmental impacts. Those impacts were becoming well known in the early 1960’s and the devastation to birds, especially raptors such as falcons and eagles was an important factor in my father’s decision to leave the business. When I headed off to college in 1970, he told me that the most influential book he had ever read was Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring.” He said it opened his eyes and changed the course of his life.

It wasn’t just my father, however. The prevailing thought among a lot of people, including prominent scientists, was that nature was based on competition. We learned and believed that evolution was driven by survival of the fittest. The application of agricultural chemicals was part of a green revolution that sought to use the best of scientific research to increase agricultural productivity and feed hungry people. Worldwide overpopulation was seen as a problem that needed to be solved by increasing agricultural production. The short-term effects of the green revolution was dramatic. Agricultural yields did increase dramatically.

Little was known, however, about the long-term effects of such practices. Removing competing plants from farmland increased production of the desired crops but decreased the soil nutrients that had been enhanced by decomposing plant matter. This resulted in the need for more chemical fertilizers. Over application of chemical fertilizers increased productivity, but resulted in chemical runoff that changed the nature of streams and rivers. Agricultural scientists were using the world as a subject in a gigantic experiment that produced some dramatic unintended consequences.

During the latter half of my father’s time as a chemical applicator, more and more was learned about the complexity of relationships in the natural world. By the time he stopped applying chemicals much was known about the dangers and side effects of applying chemicals on forests, but the best science available to foresters at that time did not yet include research into mycology. Fungal organisms were viewed as parasitic and as harmful to trees. There was almost no understanding of the complex relationships at the root level of the forest. That science has come much later and is only now producing changes in policies of forest management.

Domination and competition were the prevailing understandings of how the world worked. Much of the green revolution was bred on agricultural practices that believed that crops and weeds were competitors and weeds had to be controlled and dominated in order for crops to be productive. Multi-million dollar pesticide, fertilizer, and genetic programs have been developed to promote single high-yield crops instead of diverse fields. The same types of understanding were applied to the management of animals on ranches. Cattle were bred to produce calves that grew quickly and added fat when fed diets that were rich in grains. Feed supplements were added to grass hay and grains were fed to fatten cattle and ribbon beef. As Angus cattle and Angus-Charolais mixes replaced Herefords in efforts to produce more resilient and more rapidly growing calves. Artificial insemination and embryo transfer techniques were refined based on the belief that cattle needed to be stronger and grow faster. The strength of the individual calf was prized over the overall health of the herd. In forestry, the theory of dominance was put into practice through weeding, spacing, thinning and other methods that promote growth of the prized individual trees. In all of this - farming, ranching, and forestry - soil stewardship and the health of the land took a back seat to short term profits.

It turns out that we were wrong. What makes for the greatest strength is cooperation. Plants and animals thrive best when grown in relationship to other plants and animals.

We are paying the price for the mistakes we have made as we learned. Short term gains did not produce sustainable practices. Scientists are discovering new and better ways to exercise stewardship of the land.

We humans often learn best through our mistakes. In the case of the health of our planet, however, we need a steep learning curve. The time of being able to change our ways is short. I hope I have not forgotten the lessons my father taught me.