Essay On The Pesticide Problems

Essay On The Pesticide Problems.

What is the pesticide problem? To put it simply, pesticides are sued to increase productivity in agriculture to meet the growing demands of the exploding population. One of the ways of increasing productivity is by controlling and destroying plant and animal pets that pose a great danger to agriculture. For this, pesticides, such as weed killers, insecticides, and rat killers, are used.

Very recently you might have read in local papers that a rare disease had affected the rubber trees of Pulau Langkawi and some other parts of Kedah. Had the disease been allowed to spread, it
would have destroyed millions of rubber trees and as a result our country's economy would have been very adversely affected. To prevent this the Rubber Research Institute of Malaya used some form of pesticide for aerial spraying over the affected area, thereby bring the disease under control.

This is only one instance of the great benefit we derive from the use of pesticides. Without doubt pesticides play a vital part in the agricultural and general economic development of a country. This is particularly so for the over-populated, underdeveloped agrarian countries of the world.

While laying great emphasis on the benefits that pesticides confer on agricultural production we tend to ignore its harmful effects. The magnitude of the harmful side-effects of pesticides is a matter of debate. Nevertheless, the fact that there are harmful side effects in the use of pesticides is conceded by all. A public debate on the use of pesticides is an urgent necessity. We are strengthened in this belief by the fact that in some countries like the United States of America and Britain there is a complete ban on the use of certain types of pesticide.

Some of the harmful side-effects of pesticides include the poisoning of human beings, animal and plant life. Pesticides are used to kill certain pets that destroy crops; but these pesticides are not specifically meant for any particular type of pest. As a result when we use pesticides in an area, they kill some other organisms as well. We often hear of domestic animals that die as a result of eating leaves and grass from areas where these pesticides are used. When pesticides are used in an area they spread in the atmosphere, in the water, and are found in animal bodies. They produce complex interaction in animal bodies.

They produce complex interaction in animals and human beings. In places where pesticides are spread by means of aerial spraying over large areas of forests there is evidence of large scale wildlife casualties. The examination of large number of birds is another harmful side-effect of the use of pesticides in forests.

The destruction of plant life following the use of pesticides is acute when it is sprayed over an area where there is a complicated mosaic of different crops. What is meant to destroy a certain pest in a particular crop may destroy some other crop as well. In the case of spraying pesticides over vast areas that support the same crop, the possibility of destruction of other forms of crop or plant life is very remote. The poison from pesticides found accumulated in the animal and plant food that we eat could have harmful affects on the human species.

The frightening destruction of wild life and plant life by pesticides, and the dangers they pose to human beings have given rise to alarm and reaction against the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Considering the large-scale use of pesticides in nearly all countries of the world, and realising its harmful effects on human species, animal -- domestic and wild-- and plant life, it is of urgent necessity that all those concerned with the use of pesticides -- agriculturists, industrialists, medical authorities and conservation biologists -- should make concerted efforts to encourage research in the extend and magnitude of the harmful effects, and the manufacture pesticides only for certain specific purposes.

 In the meantime, if there is a strong case for the use of any pesticide with very dangerous side-effects, it should be dismissed in the large interest of human society.