Dr. Elizabeth Hilborn is a veterinarian and honeybee specialist who has also worked as a disease detective with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When her North Carolina farm is damaged by toxic chemicals — a combination of insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides, including glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup—she works to try to uncover the cause of the damage and help her rural community recover. Restoring Eden, Hilborn’s new memoir, narrates this experience, stating that “In the natural world, going out with a sense of curiosity really helps.” It is curiosity that led her to investigate the causes of the damage to her farm. She says that the type of damage that her family was dealt is reversible, but consumers need to be educated about their options and the power of their money. “I hope that I left space for hope,” Hilborn said. “All of this is under our control.”
Early in Restoring Eden, there is a quote, “We live among multitudes.” Many people who don’t live in rural areas don’t realize this. Do you think that contributes to the problems facing farming and conservation efforts?
Later in the book, I found a quote: ‘We grieve only for what we know.’ If people aren’t aware of something, they may not consider it. When we first moved to the farm, I was moving from a suburban area. I didn’t have a lot of rural experience. Our fruit trees were pollinated, and our kitchen scraps were turned into compost. We never had a problem with mosquitos, because there were big dragonflies patrolling. That was just normal. But I didn’t even think about why all those things happened. As I grew here as a gardener and a fruit grower, I learned more. Over time, I paid attention more and saw how much life was in the soil. When things changed, I really missed it. On-the-ground experience matters.
You write, “the process of raising food is a simple partnership. We take care of the land and the inhabitants, and they take care of us.” Do you think existing small-scale efforts are enough to keep in mind when thinking about food production and safety?
Everyone’s different, but I’m a huge advocate for people growing some of their own food. I have a sister-in-law who just has pots, and she’ll grow tomatoes, peppers, and herbs. She gets so much joy out of some pots because she can harvest her own food. I think it’s a really wonderful, healthy thing to do. I think it increases people’s connection with that process, but I don’t know if it’s enough to save our agricultural system. We have this whole industrial machine chugging along. I’m grateful for people’s awareness. I think it’s a wonderful thing to grow our own food, but I don’t think it’s going to move the needle much on giving us a safer food system far into the future. One of my biggest concerns, after seeing the soil destruction, was that we have limited time. We’ve been warned by soil experts that we’re using up the world’s soil. Our topsoil is so unique. The fact that we can destroy it through the way we’re farming gave me fear deep in my core. Preserving soil is key to the future.
The reader in 2023 might have a visceral reaction you and your neighbors didn’t have at the first mention of Roundup. Did you anticipate this reaction from your readers? If so, how did you plan to address it in the writing of your book?
Roundup is the most-used pesticide in the entire world. The United States is the largest pesticide user in the entire world. We use the most pesticides per acre on our farmland in the entire world. It commonly contaminates surface water. It’s been found in drinking water. Residues are commonly found in food. I’ve been surrounded by it and aware of its use since it was first introduced in the 1970s. Because it’s so common, I didn’t anticipate that it would be a surprise to people. In some ways, it’s invisible to us. Where I live, there are walkways where brick has been laid into sand. Things will grow up in there if the walkway is not constantly maintained. The default until recently was Roundup. Everywhere we go where the landscape is modified for our use, Roundup is used.
Elsewhere, you write, “Now, I realize that, if accepted at face value, half-truths can be dangerous things.” Where else is this true in conservation, beyond farming?
We live in a very complex world. Sometimes, things will be explained to us with a soundbite-length of representation. People tuck away something short and simple, and that’s how you label whatever that thing is. The deeper you look, the more you find that those short, simple statements are misleading at best, and may not even be true. When I was using Roundup to control the grass around my pastures, I was careful, but I wasn’t afraid of it, because I’d stopped at the soundbite level. As I looked deeper, I had to revise my understanding.
The structure of Restoring Eden is almost like a suspense thriller. Was that purposeful, or did the story simply lend itself to that structure?
I just tried to tell my story. As I went through it, I was learning new things every day. Everything was a mystery to me at the beginning. I had no idea what was happening. People I reached out to couldn’t help me. I tried to bring readers along on my journey of discovery.
One of the first signs that something was wrong with your swale was the disturbances among frogs there. How did finding signs of environmental damage that might have been more obvious to your neighbors than insect damage affect your advocacy for the land?
Any time I tried to communicate with my neighbors because we have such different lives, I always sought to find things that are common here that they would notice. The frogs were important because they are so sensitive that they’re like the canary in the coal mine. When the frogs start dying, something’s going on.
You write about the ways in which environmental damage contributes to stress levels among humans. Where do you see that happening in your life and work?
Beekeepers will share with me that they’ve lost colonies. Some will share with me that they’ve given up because of repeated colony losses. But beekeepers don’t always talk about colony losses, because it’s so common that it’s part of beekeeping. About 50% of colonies are lost each year. Where I really hear about it, though, is when I’m talking to people. I love to talk to people about food, gardening, pets, and wildlife. I hear such sadness in people’s voices as they say, ‘I just don’t see butterflies anymore,’ or, ‘I used to hear whippoorwills here all night long, and they’ve been gone now for some years.’ Some people have given up vegetable gardens, because they do so poorly. People miss what they’ve treasured that they don’t have anymore.
Insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides like Roundup played a substantial role in damaging the swale, which caused the mosquito population to remain uncontrolled by natural predators. You write, “An intact, healthy wetland with a diversity of animals (previously) kept mosquitos under control.” How could framing your issue as a public health crisis change the conversation?
The swale where the animals lived was damaged by a mixture of pesticides. My water samples showed insecticides in the water. Roundup was found in the wheat straw, but not the water, but other herbicides were found in the water. The bigger point is that when the water quality was damaged and we lost our mosquito predators, we were then at risk for the mosquitos that could survive under those conditions. I’m an environmental health scientist, and I’m very aware of vector-borne diseases. If we have a problem and we hit it with insecticides, we kill all the insects. My mosquitos had previously been controlled by dragonflies and diving beetles. More insecticide would make it harder for the control team to come back. That’s a vicious cycle we’ve created. We see pests explode, and we hit them with insecticide, but we kill all the good guys, too, so there are no predators to control the pests when they come back. For natural waters, it’s really important to try to minimize pesticide use to keep the natural helpers.
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is now so common that you write “it’s now found in rain as it falls from the sky.” How did you want the reader to react to that line?
I wanted to share that terrifying fact. I hope that readers can see the solution. Our heavy use of that chemical is why it’s falling back on us from the sky. As a society, we can choose to use less of the chemicals that we’ve made part of our hydrologic cycle. It’s important to know where we are now. If we can reduce our use, we reduce the amount in the environment.
To what degree did you worry about your neighbors taking your findings personally?
I gave a lot of scrutiny to the written material I handed to them because I knew it was complicated. But the conversations all flowed out of our existing relationship. I never overthought it. I’d known these people for so long, and I knew they were good people. They didn’t realize the damage that could occur from all these mixtures of pesticides that are applied in modern farming. My goal was to uncover the reasons the animals died. They supported me in that. They tried to help me. Once I figured it out, I didn’t blame them. I’m an environmental scientist. If I didn’t know that a cornfield could be such a risk to life on the land, how are they supposed to know?
What other innocent farming mistakes can lead to environmental disaster?
I think most of us try to do our best as we move forward in life, but we don’t know everything. In farming, the natural world can surprise us. For example, I had carefully collected these big hickory nuts. I planted them, and they didn’t come up the first year, so I forgot about them. The next year, they came up. They were this precious hickory strain. I thought, ‘Oh, what are these weeds?,’ and I pulled them all up! I thought about it later. I like to think that people really try to do their best. I know that farmers in general really care about their land, especially if it’s land they own. There’s evidence that people who lease land may take care of it less, because it’s not theirs. But that’s a financial decision.
What advice do you have for average citizens taking on large conglomerates when global or national issues affect their ways of life?
Consumers have power. I’ve embraced that because I’m just one person. I’ve never tried to change a company’s business practices. I don’t know how to do that. But the power I have is my money, my voice. So, I try to buy things that align with my values. I buy food that I know is low-pesticide from my farming neighbors. But I fully recognize my privilege in being able to do this. I support organizations that advocate for farmers. I support organizations that seek to protect life and land. I vote. I write my elected representatives and tell them my opinions on things. I’m sharing my story. I witnessed great damage to the community after those new nicotinoid insecticides contaminated our water. We still haven’t recovered. We each have our voices and our agency. What are the opportunities to use those? Those are my opportunities now. I think it’s different for every person. I really struggled to find a laboratory to do the tests on my water, and these are the most common pesticides used in the United States today. I couldn’t find anyone in my state to do the tests for neonicotinoid insecticides. People who do care might run into this roadblock.
How should people who care about sustainable farming, and conservation more generally, start taking action?
Choose what you buy. People who have yards can make more space for wildlife like bees, fireflies, and butterflies. People who garden can make a big difference by buying plants that aren’t treated with neonicotinoid insecticides. Many nurseries will treat the plants so the leaves don’t get little holes. But then, the systemic insecticide is inside the plant. As it grows and bees and butterflies feed on it, they can become poisoned, too.
MEMOIR
Restoring Eden
By Elizabeth D. Hilborn
Chicago Review Press
Published August 8, 2023
Southern Review of Books 