Advantages of chemical pest control Eradicate quickly and with an efficiency of up to 100%. Most are very easy to apply and can hinder pests that hide in small crevices and other hiding places. Some pest control chemicals kill slowly due to the active ingredient. Excessive use of chemical pest control promotes the evolution of pesticide resistance.
When pesticides are applied, people who are more resistant are more likely to survive. If their resistance to the chemical has a genetic basis, they will in turn pass these genes to their progeny so that the population becomes more resistant over time. In other words, chemical pest control acts as a type of artificial selection for pesticide resistance. According to Essential Environment, in 2000 there were more than 2,700 known cases of resistance of 540 pest species to more than 300 pesticides, including the diamond-backed moth and the green peach aphid, which are agricultural pests.
An important advantage of chemical pest control is its efficiency. Most chemicals act very quickly and, when properly selected, are highly effective in eliminating pests. Chemicals can be used to control or kill specific pests on a farm. Another disadvantage of chemical pesticides is resistance.
Pesticides are usually effective only for a (short) period in a particular organism. Organisms can become immune to a substance, so they no longer have an effect. These organisms mutate and become resistant. This means that other pesticides must be used to control them.
Many different chemicals are used to kill pests. These pesticides often work well, but because they are designed to kill living things, they can cause serious problems in humans or pets. Pesticides pollute the environment and the food we eat and can enter our bodies when we apply them to our plants or animals. Sometimes they harm other organisms besides their target.
Another problem with using chemicals to control an organism's population is that a pest can become resistant to a pesticide. Conventional pesticides are synthetic chemicals (or agrochemicals). They usually work by directly killing or inactivating pests. Biopesticides can directly kill harmful organisms, or they can act indirectly by interfering with reproduction or simply repel pests with substances they don't like.
On the other hand, the disadvantages of widespread use of pesticides are significant. They include pollution and death of domestic animals, loss of natural pest antagonists, resistance to pesticides, decrease in honey bees and pollination, losses to adjacent crops, losses of fisheries and birds, and pollution of groundwater. Soil fertility is affected by death or damage to microorganisms caused by pesticides. In addition, some pesticides induce immunotoxicity in humans, which can lead to immunosuppression, hypersensitivity (allergies), autoimmune diseases and inflammation; children may be especially susceptible to the adverse effects of exposure to pesticides.
People who regularly work with pesticides, such as farmers, have a higher risk of cancer. Thousands of non-lethal poisonings and cases of cancer each year are attributable to pesticides. Therefore, if higher crop yields can be produced through the use of pesticides in agricultural processes, the food supply will also increase. A pesticide is any substance or mixture of substances whose purpose is to prevent, extinguish or repel pests or regulate plants.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) publishes an annual list of the Dirty Dozen of the products with the most pesticide residues. The use of chemicals can help a farmer eliminate the entire pest population almost instantaneously, simply by administering the chemical into the environment occupied by the pest. Therefore, many farmers around the world will have access to large quantities of pesticides and herbicides just when they need them; the lack of these substances is quite unlikely. It is difficult to definitively prove that a pesticide is responsible for a human disease, but some types are suspected of causing damage to the nervous system or cancer.
Therefore, many farmers around the world rely on pesticides to maximize crop yields, and there is simply no suitable alternative that has similar positive effects. In addition to chemical and biological control, interest has also grown in recent years in the possibility of controlling pests using biotechnological methods. Some common substances in cooking can be useful in eliminating pests from the garden, and it is worth trying them before using another method of control. Products that provide biological control through chemicals of natural origin are classified as plant protection products, as are pesticides, so must also meet strict requirements.
It is estimated that since 1945, the use of pesticides has prevented about seven million deaths from insect-spreading diseases. Disease control in people and pets is not the only positive reason for using pesticides and herbicides. Pesticides have been so overused that, in some cases, the only surviving pests, individuals with the greatest natural resistance, reproduce and generate resistant offspring. .
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