When I was a child, I can remember my parents taking me into the apple orchard and picking apples. I couldn’t wait to eat them until I got home, so I would have one for a snack right in the middle of the field. Today, when I take my children apple picking, I cannot let the children eat an apple out of fear of what pesticides could be on the apple and the harmful affects they can cause. Instead I have to take them home and scrub them before they can even take a bite. This is the result of the harmful pesticides that have left their mark on our argriculture.
A pest is any species that competes with us for food invades our homes and gardens, destroys wood in houses, spreads disease, or is simply a nuisance in our natural ecosystem. In many polyculture agroecosytems, natural enemies such as predators parasites in disease organisms control the population between 50 and 90 percent of the pest species(Miller, 1998). When we keep the natural ecosystem simple we upset the natural checks and balances. The natural system keeps any form of pest from taking over before too long.
We have devised ways to protect our crops, tree farms, and lawns from insect and other pests that nature could have once controlled. We have done this by primarily developing a variety of pesticides. Pesticides are chemicals created to kill organisms that we consider undesirable. Some types of pesticides include insecticides which are insect killers, herbicide which are weed killers, fungicides which are fungus killers, nematocides which are round eat worm killers, and rodenticides which are rat in mouse killers. According to the EPA, worldwide and we used to 2. million tons of these pesticides annually that breaks down to approximately one pound for each person on earth. About 75 percent of these chemicals are being used in developed countries but is now soaring in the developing countries. In the United States approximately 25 percent of pesticide use is for ridding house, gardens, lawns, playingfields, swimming pools, and golf courses of unwanted pests. According to the EPA, the average lawn in the United States is doused with more than ten times the needed amount of insecticides.
Each year more than 200,000 U. S. esidents become a ill because of household use of pesticides resulting from accidental poisoning. Broad spectrum agents are toxic to many species while others called selective or in narrow spectrum agents are effective against barely defined groups of organisms. Pesticides very in their persistence in the length of time they remain deadly in the environment. Supporters of pesticides state they save human lives, increase food supply, lower food costs, increased profits for farmers, in the field that the health risks are in significant compared to the benefits(Miller, 1998).
Since 1945, EDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbon and organic bio phosphate insecticides have probably prevented the premature deaths of at least 7 million people from inset transmitted diseases such as malaria (mosquito), bubonic plague(rat fleas), typhus(body lice), and sleeping sickness(tsetse fly). About 55 percent of the world’s human food supply is lost to pests before or after harvest in the United States. An estimated 37 percent of the potential food supply is destroyed due to insect or plant pathogens in weeds without pesticides, the losses would be worse and food prices would rise by 30 to 50 percent.
Pesticide companies estimate that every one dollar spent on pesticides leads to an increase in U. S. crops worth approximately 4 dollars. Studies have shown that the benefit drops to about 2 dollars if the harmful attacks the pesticides are included (Miller, 1998). According to Elizabeth Whelan, director for the American council on science and held the she says “the reality is that pesticides, when used in the uproot may enter, pose no way as to either bomb workers or consumers. ” supporters of pesticides also state that the media records describing the harm are distorted and irresponsible reporting.
Opponents of the use of pesticides believe that side effects outweighed their benefits. The biggest problem is the development of genetic resistance to pesticides by pest organisms. Insects breed rapidly and within 5 to 10 years (much sooner in tropical areas) develop immunity through natural selection and comeback stronger than they were before. Weeds and plants can also become resistant to the process is much lower. The at least 17 types out in insect pests are resistant to all major classes of insecticies and several fungal plant diseases are now immune to most fungicides.
Because of genetic resistance, most widely used insecticides no longer protect people from insect transmitted diseases in many parts of the world. Another problem is that broad spectrum insecicides kill natural predators and parasites that may have been maintaining the population of a pest species at reasonable level. It also wipes out the natural predator and unleashes new pests into the population that predators had previously held in check . Another problem with pesticides that they do not stay put. No more than 2 percent applied to the crops by spraying actually reaches the insects and the less than 5 percent to reaches the weeds.
They miss their target and end up in the air, water, food, and end up on nontarget zones such as humans and wildlife. Pesticides can also harm wildlife and human life. It is estimated that 220,000 deaths are a result of the pesticides. Primarily this is high among farmworkers in developing countries as a result of applying by hand. Residue food causes between 4, 0000 to 20,000 cases of cancer per year in the United States. A 1993 study by the National Academy of Science has concluded that the legal limits for pesticide residue will need to be reduced to 1000 times to protect our children.
The food industry denies that anyone in the United States has ever been harmed for eating food grown with the use of pesticides for the past 50 years. Do we have other ways to control pests? Crop rotation consists of crops being rotated each year. A farmer can also plant hedges around the field to prevent insect invasion while also providing homes for their natural enemies. Planting times can also be changed to allow them to be eaten by their predators and starve the insects. Trap crops can be planted to lure insects away from the main crop. Biological agents must also be protected from pesticides sprayed on nearby fields.
More than 300 biological control projects worldwide have been successful. In the United States it has saved farmer is an average of $25 for every 1 dollar they have invested. A negative side to this is that they are slow to act and if they are not under control they can become pests themselves. Biopesticides, are chemicals produced from plants and are used by organic farmers. However, a genetic resistance is already developing. Insect birth control is also being used by radiation or chemicals, which they are reenter the males resulting into the population resulting in unsuccessful mating.
The problem is this is a high cost venture with unpredictable mating times for each kind of insect. Many experts and farmers believe that the best way to control pests is by a carefully designed integrated pest management program (IPM). The over out of IPM is not to eradicate the populations, but reduce the amount of damage to a tolerable level. Small amounts of insecticides are used and only as a last resort. Thenn other chemicals are used to slow the development of genetic restistance and avoid killing predators.
The widespread use of this program is hindered by government subsidies of chemical pesticides and opposition from agriculture groups and chemical companies because it l would have a significant drop in sales. Many experts believe that a key to reduce the world hunger, poverty, and harmful environmental attacks is to develop a system of the sustainable agriculture that would be integrated into society over a 3 year period. Low input farming will reduce this waste of irrigation water and less use of pesticides and inorganic fertilizer. A few general guidelines for this system are as follows: Combine traditional high yield. The modern monoculture methods of growing crops. ? Reduce destruction of the natural forests, grasslands, and wetlands for producing foods by emphasizing on increasing yields per area by sustainable methods. ? Produced waterways to in irrigation. ? Educate the public about hidden environmental and health costs and gradually incorporate these costs into the market price. ? Integrate agriculture, the population, urban and rural, energy, health, climate, water resource, soil resource, land use, pollution, and biodiversity protection policies.
Integrating many of these things would be difficult to, but many environmentalists believe that a new revolution could take place through most of the world over the next 30 to 50 years by instituting the policies outlined. If we continue to use pesticides, we will continue to harm our population through explosure, food contamination, and insect mutation. Is up to the people to force our government to make change, before we create irreversible damage that will have detrimental effects on our world in its population.