Pesticides Effects Essay Example For Students

Pesticides Effects Essay There are many important issues in the world regarding the environment and itsaffects on the average person. Though, the one that hits closest to home,worldwide, is the trust that individuals have in the food that they consume. Yetpesticides are still found daily in foods all around the world. Pesticides aretoxins that are used by produce growers universally to control pests that candestroy crops. These toxins are being ingested by humans in the forms of fruitsand vegetables that have remaining toxins on them. How safe are these toxins tohumans and what is being done to safeguard the environment as well as the healthof individuals? Does the average person consume harmful amounts of poison atevery meal? If the levels are unsafe, why is this problem continuing to get ablind eye from the people who are supposed to protect society? These questionswhen asked only lead to more questions. Until things are done to change thesystems of pesticide usage universally, society can never be sure as to the longterm effects on our environment and what they are eating or giving to the futureof our world, the children. In some foreign countries pesticides are used morefrequently with legislative control than in the United States. In Mexico andSouth America, for example, many of the pesticides that the United States andEurope have banned, wind up being used on a majority of their produce crops. Thelargest problem with this is that Europe and the United States import from SouthAmerica for produce all of the time. What good does it do to ban harmfulagricultural chemicals to be used on domestically grown crops if crops in othercountries are grown with these same harmful chemicals, and are then allowed tobe imported? Mexico and South America are the leading suppliers of produce forthe earths population because their climate is very conducive to year aroundcrops. Unfortunately those countries are also known for their large amount ofinsects of all varieties. These insects are steadily b ecoming more and moreimmune to toxins that are sprayed on crops. More than five hundred insects, onehundred and fifty plant diseases and two hundred and seventy weeds are nowresistant to pesticides. Results are that U.S. growers as well, are steadilyforced to apply more and stronger toxins. As the amount and the strength of thetoxin increases, the immunity of the targeted insects to these toxins alsoincreases. Total U.S. crop losses from insect damage has nearly doubled since1945. Insecticide use during this same time has increased tenfold. This war willgo on being waged until the game plan is changed. The produce export trade insome cities and countries constitutes the majority of their economy and theywill protect the resulting income at all costs. These places have very littlelegislation to control chemical usage, and follow up on almost none of itseffects. Officials do not care how it affects consumers, being adults orchildren. Even their own agricultural workers health is of no concern. Theseofficials only care about producing crops and exporting them with as littleoverhead as possible. The bottom line is, always has been, and always will bemoney. In Villa Juarez, Mexico, many children who work in the produce fields arecoming down with mysterious illnesses and some people in this region put theblame directly on those childrens contact with the chemical acephate and otherpesticides that are used in that area. The use of acephate is illegal in theUnited States, but is perfectly legal in Mexico. Doctors in Juarez are treatingunusually high amounts of cancer and also fifty to eighty cases of chemicalpoisoning per week in their agricultural workers. This continues to happenbecause the government and the growers do not take these illnesses seriously;the workers are expendable. Growers in Culcan Valley, Mexico use chemicals toincrease production of produce sold in the U.S. every winter. Unfortunately,studies that were preformed by the Government Accounting offic e in Mexico showedthat at least six pesticides that are illegal in the U.S. were still on theproduce when it was exported. Moving on to South America, in Chile there are noclear guidelines governing the use of agricultural chemicals on produce crops. In the city of Rancaga, a large fruit growing region, a study was done to checkthe risks that rural workers face, and what they found was astounding. Dr. MariaMella found that there is an alarming amount of sterility and birth defects dueto exposure to chemical pesticides in agricultural workers. Congenialdeformities were five times higher, and multiple deformities were a shockingfour times higher than normal in this part of South America. These studies wereconducted by the Womens Institute and were based on ten thousand infants bornin this region. Dr. Mella insists that these chemicals cause deformities ininfants, sterility in workers, and induced miscarriages. Horribly, sheapproximates that up to sixty percent of pesticides used on wheat in SouthAmerica are still present on the bread when it is consumed. Seeing how harmfulpesticides can be to the workers who create the produce, one must wonder howmuch it can affect the consumer, maybe it depends on the strength and theharmfulness o f the chemicals. In Chile, many pesticides are derived fromThalidomide, a sleeping pill used in the 1950s, but it was removed from theUnited States when it was found to be responsible for severe deformities ininfants, infants born without limbs. Other pesticides that are used in Chile areparathon, paraquat, and lindane. They have already been banned in most othercountries. Chile is among the countries with the weakest and least restrictivelegislation on the control of pesticides. They also use products likepentachlophenal, which is a highly toxic fungicide used on their crops. Itusually ends up seeping into ground water, which in turn is consumed byindividuals and attacks the central nervous system. We import strawberries andgrapes from Chile every day in America that probably contains one or more ofthese harmful chemicals. We also import a great percentage of our bananas fromCosta Rica. The banana industry runs the government there because bananaexportation is the major economic in come for Costa Rica and they donate much oftheir efforts to keeping up the banana crops. In Costa Rica, banana productionaccounts for five percent of the land, twenty percent of their export revenues,and a whopping thirty-five percent of their pesticide business. Workers startapplying toxins early in the production of bananas because they are susceptibleto insects. They apply about thirty kilograms of active pesticides per acre, peryear and they spray fungicide up to forty times per year. This is ten timeshigher than the normal amount used on produce. The Worldwide Health Organizationsays that the pesticides used in South America are the most dangerous in theworld. Growers use chemicals like fenamifos, etoprop, and paraquat, all of whichare banned or are being reviewed. Exposure of workers to these chemicals hascaused blindness, sterility and even death. The growers use such high amounts ofchemicals because worm infestation is high in fledging bananas. Therefore,workers tie bags of pesticides directly on young banana bunches, but when thewind blows, the bags are swept into streams and rivers. It is the people ofCosta Rica who pay a high price for bananas. Many well-known names in the bananabusiness grow their bananas in Costa Rica. Chiquita, Dole, and Del Monte arejust a few, for example, that have fields there. They claim that they areconcerned for the health of the consumers and workers, but they have actuallydone very little to change the way pesticides are being handled and tested. TheCosta Rican regulatory service is responsible for checking up on banana growers,but the head of the department has admitted that he has never visited a bananaplantation because he has no funding for vehicles. What kind of dummyorganization is this? The only checks that are being conducted are randomly donewhen they are exporting the bananas. There has never been a case when thebananas entering the United States, were checked, did not exceed the limits ofpesticide residue. Gro wers are more concerned with how their bananas look thatif they are harmful to the consumer. This leads to the question, why does theUnited States allow the produce into its supermarkets? Who is getting paid? Overhalf of the U.S. House of Representatives has agreed to sign a new bill thatwill weaken the federal laws regarding high-risk pesticides in foods and water. Parts Emporium Persuasive Essaystates. Aside from having deformities, the number of frogs in these areas aredwindiling in numbers. The frog population is also decreasing in countries likeAustralia, India, Europe, Central and South America, and in the majority of thewestern United States. The Declinig Amphibians Population Task Force was set upby the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and has backing frommany governments, including the United States. Their scientists are continuillylooking for reasons for the mysterious population decreases. It has been thoughtthat pesticides used by nearby farms is the leading cause. Scientists havediscovered that not only are the appendeges of frogs being affected bypesticides and chemicals, but the hormonal makeup of other wildlife is beingaffected as well. Many pesticides and other chemicles released into ourenviornment funtion as endocrine disrupters, alter the hormonal makeup ofwildlife and humans. Problems in the reproductive system have been discovered inharbor seals, snapping turtles, and double crested cormorants. Behavorialabnormalities have been cited in different species of gulls and terns, andimmune suppression in beluga whales, common terns and gulls has been documented,according to the National Wildlife Federation. An NWF study reprts thatendocrine Disruptors have resulted in animal offspring whose gender distinctionsare unclear. Alligators, western gulls and rainbow trout have emerged withrudimentary sexual organs, and western and herring gulls have been observedexhibiting mating behaviors of both genders.. Most people, no matter whattheir view is on pesticide usage, will agree that to maintain a healthylifestyle, eating properly outweighs the risk of ingesting possible residues. After all, society knows that fruits and vegetables are very important tomaintain a balanced diet. So produce must be protected and maybe there are saferways of doing it. In some countries like China, they encourage the service andpopulation of spiders and other insect-eating creatures within their rice crops. When we spray poisons to kill pests, we are also killing that pests naturalpredators. The only way individuals can protect themselves and their children isto rinse fruit and vegetables thoroughly under running water. Also peelingfruits helps to remove surface residue. Another way to prevent the intake ofpesticides is to throw away the outer leaves of vegetables. Cooking and bakingfoods also helps to kill residues and bacteria. If society is going to stop theescalation of pesticides, then alternative solutions must be explored and putinto effect. BibliographyAdhous, Peter. Ween Chemical: The Pieces Fall in Place. Science 6Nov 992:893. Online. Internet. 13 Oct.1998. 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