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Thomas Anderson

5/1/18

Engl 102

Melissa Santos

Effects of Pesticides and Chemical Fertilizers

In modern farming practices using pesticides and chemical fertilizers are used to increase yields and prevent the destruction of crops. For these purposes pesticides and fertilizers are all very useful especially with the creation of GMOs that offer protection of the plant from the pesticides but with the benefits that they grant they also bring many disadvantages along with them. As pesticides are mostly used to kill pests most of them are toxic to humans and can have many adverse effects. Most chemical fertilizers have nitrogen in them. When nitrogen gets into the water systems it can cause health problems in the humans drinking it and cause blooms of algae in water systems they get into. With this in mind I hope I can show you the reasons why The use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers have negative effects on the environment and to you yourself that make the benefits of using them seem silly.

The benefits of pesticides are very clearly seen. Using pesticides simply gets rid of pests who would eat the crops therefore removing some of the crop losing the farmer money. While the benefits of pesticides may be easy to see the downsides are much sneakier but important to know about. To use pesticides you apply them to the plants you want to protect which inevitably leaves some of it on the food when it gets to your house to eat but not just that it can also get into the ground and water which means that it gets into the water that you are drinking. That means you are ingesting these chemicals that are designed to kill things into your body. In the article “Chemical Pesticides and Human Health: The Urgent Need for a New Concept in Agriculture” stated that a recent study has “examined the possible relation between glyphosate, genetically modified crops, and health deterioration in the USA. Correlation analyses raised concerns about possible connections between glyphosate use and various health effects and diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, strokes, autism, kidney failure, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, and cancer (82). Furthermore, there are concerns about the possible ability of glyphosate to cause gluten intolerance, a health problem associated with deficiencies in essential trace metals, reproductive issues, and increased risk to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (92)”.(4) This goes to show just how many health issues can be caused by taking in these dangerous chemicals into your body.

Pesticides are used to prevent pests from getting at crops or to just kill them in general but these chemicals are not selective over what they affect. They do not just target the pests but also other similar organisms to the pests a good example being bees. As of late bee populations have been disappearing at an alarming rate and while there are a number of factors that may be taking a part in this pesticides are very likely one of them. In a recent study of the effects of pesticides on honey bees it was found that they would have many bad effects depending on the specific chemicals used such as reduced food intake, increased mortality rates, higher aggression levels, and more bees walking instead of flying. These changes show clearly that the pesticides are affecting the bees negatively is leading to less bees who are very important for pollinating plants.

Chemical fertilizers are used for getting additional elements like nitrogen and phosphorus that promote faster growth of plants. In the article Dead zones spreading in World's oceans “Nitrogen is necessary to increase crop yields,” states the report, "but plants art' inefficient at taking it up, and often more fertilizers and animal wastes are added than the plants need. As a result, only a fraction of the nitrogen applied to soils actually ends up in crops; in some regions, it is less than 20 percent.” The rest is on the loose. But when we use these chemical fertilizers the nitrogen and other chemicals can run off into the water”(Dybas). While these elements are a natural part of underwater ecosystems to much of it can lead to what is called a algae bloom. What happens basically is that with the increase in nitrogen and phosphorus levels allow way more algae than usual to grow. In normal circumstances this algae is just a normal part of the environment but with a massive increase in the population the algae starts to take all of the oxygen out of the water leading to the death of many aquatic species. These areas of water that have been sucked of all of their oxygen are called dead zones. In these waters the oxygen content can drop drastically for months at a time killing anything that can not leave. There are around 146 of these dead zones throughout the world 43 of which that are within United States waters with the second largest one inside of the Gulf of Mexico. The algae bloom can also affects humans as well as algae blooms can promote the growth of harmful toxins and bacteria.

With all of these examples it is hard to see why we use these pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Between hurting animals and people and even making sections of the oceans completely uninhabitable for the species you would think there would be more out cry to stop the use of these things or at the very least calls for more responsible use of these things. But as with most things the potential profits offered by these pesticides and fertilizers take precedence over the health of ourselves and our planet. With all of these downsides it is clear that the downsides of pesticides and chemical fertilizer use that we need to change how we use them or look for ways to work around their uses in farming.

Works Cited

1.Dybas, Cheryl Lyn. "Dead Zones Spreading in World Oceans." Bioscience, vol. 55, no. 7, July 2005, pp. 552-557. EBSCOhost, login.libserv-prd.bridgew.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=17554394&site=ehost-live.

2.Government. "The Effects: Environment." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 07 Apr. 2017. Web. 04 May 2018.

3.Migdał, Paweł, et al. "The Impact of Selected Pesticides on Honey Bees." Polish Journal of Environmental Studies, vol. 27, no. 2, Mar. 2018, pp. 787-792. EBSCOhost, doi:10.15244/pjoes/74154.

4.Nicolopoulou-Stamati, Polyxeni, Sotirios Maipas, Chrysanthi Kotampasi, Panagiotis Stamatis, and Luc Hens. "Chemical Pesticides and Human Health: The Urgent Need for a New Concept in Agriculture." Advances in Pediatrics. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 18 July 2016. Web. 05 May 2018.