Pesticides are substances used to kill pests that damage crops but can harm the environment. While pesticides help increase crop yields by eliminating pests, they have negative environmental impacts like accumulating in wildlife and water sources, killing animals far from application sites. Newer pesticides have less wildlife impact but still harm the environment. Surveys found pesticide residues in many common foods like baby foods, apples, lemons, bread, rice and potatoes. Alternatives to pesticides include using ladybugs, nets, and soil fungi to strengthen plant resistance without chemicals. Pesticides are very poisonous but help protect crops, yet better alternatives are needed to reduce environmental damage.
2. What are pesticides? The U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines a pesticide as "any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest".
3. History There is a long history for pesticides. I was first started to be used in the 19 hundreds, as a mosquito killer and other insect killer. After that in the early 20th century it was used on plants. Then in the 1970’s it was band in many countries because it had environmental effects like killing animals far away form where it was applied.
4. What are pests? Pests are any kind of animal or insect that feed or bread on crops like wheat and rice.
5. Benefits The benefit is that it kills any pest that my harm the crop in any way. When that is done the crops growth is enhanced in which the crop will produce better fruits or vegetables. Another thing is that it kills malaria caring mosquitoes.
6. Limitations There are many limitations to pesticides but most of them are environmental. Some are also economical. They can also be very dangerous to humans.
7. Environmental Issues There are many issues that originate form pesticides, for example a lot of animals that are high up in the food chain have been tested for high amounts of DDT (a kind of pesticide). Another thing is that it can end up in the major lakes and rivers which kills the fish in the water.
8. New Pesticides Bring New Problems In the few recent years new kinds of pesticides have been produced that do not do as much damage to the wildlife. Nevertheless it is still harming the environment which is a very bad thing.
9. Pesticide in Baby Foods In a survey that was conducted in the year 2000, showed that over 50% of baby food had such toxins as pesticides. 14% of foods had 30x the said limit of pesticide which is 0.01mg per kilogram.
10. Common Foods In the UK a research that was done in 2003 showed that 70% of apples and 90% of lemons had pesticides in them. The even most common foods had it like bread(61%), rice(54%), potatoes(35%).
11. What are the alternatives? There is a biological way which is putting in lady birds to get rid of the greenfly and others. Nets can be used like the ones used to keep away birds and large insects. There are also sprays that can be applied to the soil so that the fungi which helps feed the plants and make them resistant to insects.
12. Summery Pesticides are a very poisons and it is a very harmful to the environment. It can kill a big part of the wild life. It helps keep away pests that destroy our crops.
13. Thank you Thank you for watching and I hope you learned a few things about Pesticides and there issues.
