“I was able to solve the mystery because I didn’t give up”
A modern silent spring, with author Elizabeth D. Hilborn, DVM
Greetings, Hopecology readers! I am so happy to begin a series of interviews with inspiring people. I aim to publish these every month or so. Today I’m kicking off the interview series with Elizabeth D. Hilborn.
Dr. Elizabeth D. Hilborn, DVM, is a bee veterinarian and an environmental scientist based in North Carolina. She has published scientific reports in epidemiology and environmental health. Her book, Restoring Eden1, was released in 2023.
When Dr. Hilborn noticed disturbing changes to the wildlife on her thriving farm in the spring of 2017, she knew something had gone seriously wrong.
Restoring Eden tells her riveting story about how she had to work—hard—to get to the bottom of what had caused the silent spring in her own back yard. She also shares how she cultivates the hope necessary to move forward despite the stark realities of the nature-damaging consequences of modern agribusiness.
With an interest in contaminants and their effects on the environment and people, I once thought I would become an environmental toxicologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I expressed this interest to my supervisor at the time, who said, “We’ve already got someone working on that—but we need someone to work with this salamander…” and that is how I ended up working with amphibians instead of contaminants.2
Restoring Eden brought me back to my root interest in environmental toxicology, which is borne of the One Health concept—that everything we do to nature, we ultimately do to our own wellbeing. There is the unfortunate reality of this, but there is also hope: it shows that we have the power to stop—and in some cases reverse—these harms.
I hope you enjoy this interview with Dr. Hilborn!
Andrea Joy Adams: How did your training as a scientist help you tackle the devastating poisoning of wildlife you observed on your farm?
Elizabeth D. Hilborn: It’s important to understand that I reached out for help as a citizen, not a scientist. I didn’t know why the animals were dying or had left, so I contacted many experts and specialists, most were not scientists.
We were initially baffled that officials in agriculture, water quality, and pesticides couldn’t help us. Looking back, I think it may have been due to two reasons. The first is that we were dealing with so many unknowns, the investigation took time and resources. To be fair, the US has approved about 500 active ingredients for use as agricultural pesticides and these can perform differently when in mixtures with each other, with other chemicals or in certain environmental situations. Little is known about how they perform and any unintended effects they may have when used out in the field. We asked for help from state and local officials who never have enough resources. Realistically, I think that our whole situation was too much to ask of them.
The second reason is that current pesticide regulations in the US combined to make our situation almost untouchable. In some ways, I think, officials couldn’t help us. In 1977, an exemption was written into the Clean Water Act to exclude regulation of run-off pollution from agricultural fields. An exemption to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act makes an exception to pesticide laws: once seeds are coated with pesticides, use of those seeds is no longer regulated as a pesticide application.
These two separate regulations interacted in devastating ways to mostly prevent an official investigation of our land. I wish that early on the officials would have talked to me openly because it took me months to find out for myself. Our farm was contaminated by runoff from our neighbor’s corn field and we ultimately learned that we were victims of pesticide contamination.
The way I think about it now, from a regulatory standpoint, nothing was out of the ordinary. The concentrations of insecticide found in our water were similar to concentrations measured in water near crop fields around the US and in many areas of the world where these newer insecticides are used. Our farm’s food production was crippled. I disagree that all was working as it should just because no rules were broken.
Agriculture has really changed over the last twenty years in the United States and the laws haven’t kept up. Now, these potent pesticides are used most of the time and many crops are grown with them whether they’re needed or not. Most people don’t know this. I didn’t know this until it happened to us. Seven years after the event and we still haven’t regained the numbers of wildlife that used to live here. Due to a lack of insect pollinators, many plants here have not borne fruit or have borne scant fruit since 2017. That’s a major reason why I wrote Restoring Eden.
Although I love wildlife, I also need healthy wildlife populations to be a successful fruit grower. So even from a purely selfish viewpoint, I (and many others) agree that we need to minimize use of these toxic agricultural pesticides, because by killing the wild animals around us, we are also hurting ourselves.
Thanks for elucidating all of this—I learned so much from reading Restoring Eden. It must have been so confusing and frustrating to not be getting any support from the agencies. Is there anything else you would really like readers to know about pesticide use and regulation? What do you think is the single most important thing the average person can do to help shift these trends (besides read the book)?
I’m learning as I go about pesticide use and regulation; it’s a complicated topic and I’m frequently surprised. What I think is important to know is that in the United States, pesticide use is the norm.
Buying food grown with fewer pesticides, like organic food, creates demand and encourages farmers to use fewer pesticides. I started buying organic food and growing more pesticide-free food for our table when I became a new mother. Insecticides, one type of pesticide, are neurotoxins (poisons that harm the nervous system). Low concentrations of neurotoxins are most likely to seriously harm us when we’re young. The most critical time is when a fetus is growing in the womb through pre-school age. I fed organically-grown foods to my young daughter to do the best I could to protect her growing brain.
If someone’s concerned about pesticides in food, I refer them to the Environmental Working Group. They publish lists of fruits and vegetables with the highest, lowest, and medium amounts of pesticide residues. The list can change a bit each year, so we learn about trends from the last year with each list. For people who wish to reduce their pesticide exposure, the lists may be helpful. Organic diets are another option. Organic foods have been shown to reduce the body burden of pesticides. Organic agriculture also preserves biodiversity better than conventional agriculture.
If someone wants to support wildlife, preserving or planting more trees and flowering plants can make a difference. Grass lawns dominate landscapes in much of the United States. Pollinators need more flowers. Pollinators are sensitive to insecticides, so if you want to support bees and butterflies, choose pesticide-free plants so that bees and butterflies are not poisoned when they feed from them. When consumers ask for pesticide-free plants at local nurseries, we encourage producers to reduce their use of insecticides that harm the pollinators.
One of the things I like most about Restoring Eden is that it reads like a detective story—you take us along as you make discovery after discovery. You seemed to remain open to what the data had to show at the time, which led you to ultimately finding the truth. Do you think someone who already had their mind made up that it was indeed pesticide would have missed what you uncovered?
It was a mystery and I lived it. As you say, when I considered how to tell the story, I wanted readers to walk with me on my journey.
I had to keep an open mind because I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t know that our farm was contaminated by pesticides. It was a consideration from the beginning because of the fact of the cornfield uphill, but the damage seemed so extreme, it didn’t make sense to me. Cornfields are everywhere in farm country! Now I know how it could be possible: One pesticide-coated corn seed is covered with enough poison to kill over 80,000 honey bees. I know now that many scientists implicate these newer pesticides with the steep insect345 and bird678 loss experienced in many areas of the world9.
I think that I was able to solve the mystery because I didn’t give up. My neighbors and the farmer helped me, and I had access to scientific reports. I’ve been trained to investigate mysteries―I worked as a disease detective at CDC. My priority was to collect evidence as soon as possible and to preserve it, then I followed every potentially related lead. Analysis of the water samples I collected ultimately allowed me to understand what had happened.
One of my favorite aspects of Restoring Eden was the nature writing. I felt like I was right there on the farm with you! How do you think your relationship with nature has shaped your life and career?
Oh my goodness, thank you! The natural world is so precious to me. It’s been my place of refuge, joy, and wonder since childhood. I think that’s why I was so determined to understand what had happened. I knew the affected animals. I lived among them.
My love of life absolutely shaped my career. I’ve always been fascinated by animals, and my parents indulged me; we had many house pets during my childhood. Maybe as a result, I’d wanted to be a veterinarian since I was twelve years old. Along the way, I became a registered nurse to support myself through school and have had a thirteen- year career as a nurse.
Nursing expanded my world view of how interesting living creatures are. My understanding of how we work on a physical and psychological level grew when I studied human medicine. The emotional and spiritual aspects of life and death developed during my nursing practice when I had the privilege to work with people as they gave birth.
Gazing into a newborn’s eyes as they opened for the first time gave me a feeling of wonder and magic, similar to what I experience in ‘nature’. My senses wake up, I’m fully engaged and emotionally invested. These experiences showed me that love of life was the common thread for me throughout.
That is so beautiful. I was also moved by the descriptions of your nursing experiences in Restoring Eden. I think a lot about how an orientation toward nature (or not) shapes the everyday choices people make, which can add up to a huge environmental impact. Do you think the kind of reverence for life you describe is something people can recover if it’s been lost? If so, how?
Some people love plants, some may love a specific kind of animal, some people love children. I think that how people may or may not feel a connection to nature and to life is very personal and may be situational too. I wonder how much our capacity for connection is determined by what else is happening in our lives. We instinctively prioritize survival over connection.
I remember one busy year, I was building my career, developing the farm, and caring for our animals, our child and a critically ill parent; I was stressed and overextended. It was spring, my favorite time of year, and I could not ‘see’ the beauty of the flowering trees. I distinctly remember looking at them, but they might as well have been wallpaper. They held no emotional resonance for me.
In my experience, modern life can be overwhelming, not leaving much room for free time or the kind of inner peace that affords the ability to deeply connect with nature, with life or with other people. Many people are fully occupied working to cover the basic requirements of life.
To be healthier global citizens, as we move into the 21st century, we need to prioritize building stronger societal support for humane living and working conditions for all. I have hope, because in the last few years, we’re already seeing some change. People are demanding more from their employers―more flexibility, higher wages and more equitable treatment in the workplace. Change can be slow, but if we want to be happy, healthy, and connected, we can be.
What advice do you have for people who might want to enter into small-scale agriculture for themselves as a way to live more sustainably and closer to the land? What should they consider? Where could they start?
We chose this lifestyle for many reasons, but we didn’t have a functional farm immediately, we eased into it. I’ve kept a vegetable garden since I was a teenager and that gave me good experience to draw upon. Then I planted some fruit trees at our first house. That was a great learning experience because the mistakes I made, such as planting a sweet cherry tree here in North Carolina, linger year after year and ingenuity is required. Note: pie cherry trees do better in the hot, humid climate here. As our daughter matured and I had more time, I was able to expand the gardens and orchard here at the farm. I kept livestock. By 2017, before our farm was contaminated and our production failed, we were producing about 60% of the fruits and vegetables we ate.
Ultimately, I grew the farm until it was big enough to be a second job. I loved the work, I loved the fresh food, but it used most of my free time. If someone is curious about the lifestyle, I suggest starting small. Learn to grow things that will do well at your place and that you love to eat. Give it a try.
That’s such great advice. One final question: How do you cultivate hope/or, what brings you hope?
This experience has taught me a lot about the challenges we face with agricultural reform. The powerful agri-business community seeks to protect agricultural practices because they’re very profitable for them. But today’s agriculture is not always profitable for the farmer. In USDA’s most recent 2022 report of farm statistics, the median family farm income from farming was -$849.
I’m not the only one who’s noticed this imbalance. As I worked on the book, my research into agricultural trends showed me how many farmers are choosing to farm a different way, to use fewer pesticides. Organic agriculture is the best-defined method, but many others are choosing to buy (and use) less fertilizer and pesticides. Farmers can make more profit per acre by using these kind of conservative approaches to grow food; approaches that work with nature rather than seeking to subdue it.
Now I understand that I’m not the only one noticing the destruction of the living world alongside pesticide-intensive farming. We have a close-up view here in the United States because the US is one of the largest pesticide users on the planet. I can see how many farmers, scientists, and advocates are working to protect the living systems we depend upon to keep plants (and us!) healthy.
Preserving beneficial animals such as bees, birds, and soil organisms increases our chances of a secure food future: these animals contribute billions of dollars of value per year globally by enabling us to grow food. US consumers are helping: we’re buying native, pesticide-free plants that support pollinators, and we’re buying lower pesticide foods like organic foods. If we push and pull together towards the goal of supporting life on earth, I know that we’ll get there. That gives me a lot of hope.
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This was not entirely practical, but also political. The regional director at the time had an aversion to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Contaminants Program, and stated that he thought it was unnecessary and we should defund it altogether.
EDH: One of the reasons I wrote Restoring Eden was because almost all of the information was hidden from the public—it was in the scientific literature. But there was so much of it! I was shocked to learn how much scientists knew about what was happening to us.