There by pesticides butstill hasnt proven itself

There by pesticides butstill hasnt proven itself

There are 2.5 billion pounds of pesticides being applied to agriculturalproducts each year in the United States. This is ten times more than was appliedforty years ago. It is still unknown as to what type of exact effects thesechemicals may have on individuals. Some farmers that have been using pesticidesin their fields and developed leukemia are finding that the cause of theirdisease is from inhaling pesticides.

These chemicals are still in use today andmost of them have never been tested for the short or long-term effects that theymay have on humans. Each year there are 10,000 pesticide related poisonings. OnJuly 4th 1985, over 300 Californians became sick after eating watermelonstreated with the pesticide tenik. Testing supermarket produce is a way ofdetermining the amount of exposure the consumer receives through common producelike carrots, tomatoes and lettuce. 44% of foods that were tested insupermarkets were found to have some traces of pesticide residue on them. Of allthe pesticides found, nineteen of them were a pesticide called DDT. DDT wasbanned in this country 12 years prior to the testing.

It was believed that thesechemicals might have entered this country from another country that doesnthave pesticide restrictions as the U.S. does. Pesticides are contaminating theEarths water supplies. There are seventeen pesticides found in twenty-threestates water supplies right now. Scientists at Cornell University concludethat 99% of pesticides miss the intended source and find their way into thewater, air and soil. Most of the pollution isnt strong enough to create animmediate impact on humans so the wildlife is the primary target to thesecontaminates.

Animals such as the European Starling birds are constantly beingtested and found that they are greatly affected both behaviorally andpsychologically. Farming practices that do not use pesticides/herbicides areslowly becoming introduced bit biologically created pesticides are not nearly asproductive as found in preliminary testing. Biotechnology has shown to havesuccessfully resisted pests in plants that were destroyed by pesticides butstill hasnt proven itself as a better alternative. William Liebhardt Ph.

D. isan Agricultural Specialist at the University of California, Davis and he says,When you start spraying with pesticides, you disrupt the natural balance thatexists in nature. As a result, you end up killing beneficial insects, theninsects that were not a problem become problems and this happens repeatedlyrequiring more and more spraying.

Spraying crops with chemicals may not have animmediate effect on humans but the environment needs to be preserved for yearsto come in order for crop production to remain a vital link to the human diet.By not treating the crops, you face a possible situation of a major reduction inagricultural produce. The non-chemical approach may be the answer but it isobvious that there needs to be a lot more testing done on these products as welland they are not economically reasonable yet.

But then paying more now is asmall price to pay to have fewer problems later.Environment