You Are What You Eat 3

           

Bogdanoff          7

Shasteal Bogdanoff

Professor Smith

Writing 121

26 April 2014

You Are What You Eat

Have you ever considered what you eat?  What about the process that the food undergoes from farms to grocery stores?  Many people eating produce, meat, and dairy products have no idea about the dangers of consuming pesticides, or the problems that may result from eliminating pesticides.  Today, many farmers rely on pesticides for a source of sustainable income because pesticides increasing yields, reduce the costs of food, and create desirable produce.  Supporters of pesticide use such as farmers and many economists believe this compensates for the effects of pesticide use.  While on the other side of this debate, supporters of reducing pesticide use are environmentalists and many scientists, they believe the dangers of health risks, to humans and animals, the destruction of our environment, and the cost to fix the damages executed, outweigh the benefits of pesticides entirely.  Common ground on the issues of pest control, health issues, environmental damages and effects on our economy must be discovered and implemented.



To understand the debate of pesticide use, it is important to understand what pesticides are, and what they are made of.  Pesticides can be defined by preventing, weakening, killing, or otherwise reducing pests, the suffix -cide means killing (8).  Pesticides fall into two main categories, biological pesticides and chemical pesticides. Biological agents are derived from naturally occurring elements such as plants, animals, bacterium, or certain minerals (10).  Chemical pesticides are chemical compounds, which are synthesized.  Chemical pesticides consist of carbamate, pyrethroid, organochlorine, and organophosphates, which have a history in chemical warfare during WWII (10).  Biopesticides contain microbial (generated from microorganisms), biochemical (non-toxic pheromones), and plant-incorporated-protectants (essentially genetically modified genes introduced into the plants DNA) (10).

         Supporters of pesticide regulation, argue the destruction on our health, in addition to the environmental affects, outweigh the benefits of pesticide use.  Health risks associated to pesticides include, but are not limited to nausea, vomiting, eye, mouth, throat, or skin irritation/sensitivity, neurotoxicity, chronic effects to endocrine (hormonal), lymphatic-immune, nervous, urinary, digestive, and reproductive systems, and carcinogenicity (cancer), coma, and even death(3,9).  Many cancers include brain, breast, liver, lung, lymphoma, prostate, testicular, leukemia, and throat cancers (3, 9).  Several organizations and well know scientist have evidence to support the fact a pregnant women's unborn child, infants, and small children are especially vulnerable to the stated risks, in addition to severe birth defects, and decreased motor function skills (3, 9, 11).  Children and infants are affected most, because they are still developing (11).  In 2002, around 69,000 children had cases of poisoning, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers (1).  Some followers of pesticide regulation argue, pesticides devastated many populations, of living creatures including amphibian, fish, shellfish, turtles, bees, birds, and numerous other species(2).

         Enthusiasts of pesticide use, argue the increased yield, low cost for food, and preventing starvation problems, make a sound argument in favor of pesticide use.  A number of farmers use pesticides to decrease the amount of pests, resulting in higher yields, and lower costs of many products.  If the pests are not properly controlled, it may result in loss of crops decreasing in yield quantities and increasing the cost, resulting in food shortage, causing hunger and malnutrition.  As reported by, the Agricultural and Food Policy Center, if carbamate and organophosphates (the two most dangerous pesticides) were presently banned, it would result in an estimated 209,000 loss of jobs to agriculture workers (6).  Supporters of pesticide use, also plea, the quality of food standards would decrease, resulting in undesirable produce.  Pesticides are also used in many countries to help keep the population of disease-ridden pests such as rats, cockroaches and mosquitoes to a minimum helping cut down deadly disease transmission worldwide.

Advocates of pesticide regulation, argue the cost of over $9 billion each year, in order to fix the destruction done to humans, including pesticide poisoning, hospitalization, illness, cancer, other health problems and even death,  deaths and illness of animals, bee pollination loss and other ecosystem unbalances, ground water damages, and the damage done to the environment(7).  In the US alone, each year an approximate 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides is used on crops (12).  These supporters of pesticide regulation do not feel the benefits of pesticide use overcome the destruction to human health, damage done to our ecosystems, and the overall devastation of our plants resources.

Enthusiasts of pesticide use claim if organophosphate and carbamate pesticides were banned, our exports, such as major grains would result in about a 15 % decline (5).  The decrease in cotton would be about 19%, forcing cotton prices to increase by 28 % (4).  Supporters of pesticide use, also argue if pesticides were banned, they would then be forced to cultivate more land, in order to sustain an adequate supply of food.  Ultimately, they contend removing the use of pesticides would create starvation and malnourishment within America, and possibly the world.

In this argument debating the use of pesticides there are many factors that must be taken into consideration.  One key factor, both sides have agreed upon, is reducing the total pesticide use, using more biological pesticides, integrated pest management tactics, and discovering new alternatives.  Environmentalists and other supporters of the reduction in pesticide use, still argue the health and environment risks, and the cost to repair damages from pesticide use.  Farmers and supporters of pesticide use, argue the yields will decrease, forcing the cost to increases resulting in malnourishment and hunger problems.  In order to find equal grounds many different factors must be reviewed in detail, in order to find a mutual understanding of what is best for our health, environment, and our economy.

Work Cited

1  Bailey, Jane-Claire, Caleb Hild, Lauren Torbet, Susan Dillera. Radford University Environmental Center. 2010. Web. 23 April. 2014.

2  Canada. Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. The Society Promoting Environmental Conservation. "The Effects of Pesticides on Wildlife". The Society Promoting Environmental Conservation. N.d. Web. 24 April 2014.

3  Hosansky, David. "Regulating Pesticides." CQ Researcher 6 Aug. 1999: 665-88. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.

4  Knutson, Ronald D. Economic Impacts of the Elimination of Organophosphate and Carbamates on Texas Agriculture. 1999. PDF. 25 April. 2014.

5  Knutson, Ronald D. Economic Impacts of Reduced Pesticide use in the United States: Measurement of the Costs and Benefits. 1999. PDF. 25 April. 2014.

6  Knutson, Ronald D. Impacts of Eliminating Organophosphates and Carbamates from Crop Production. 1999. PDF. 25 April. 2014.

7  Pimentel, David. Environmental and Economic Costs of the Application of Pesticides Primarily in the United States. 2005. PDF. 2014

8  United Nations. Specialized Agencies. World Health Organization. "Pesticides."  World Health Organization. 2014. Web. 25 April 2014.

9  United States. Dept. of Agriculture. United States Environmental Protection Agency. "Assessing Health Risks from Pesticides." United States Environmental Protection Agency. USEPA, April 2007. Web. 24 April 2014.

10  United States. Dept. of Agriculture. United States Environmental Protection Agency. "Types of Pesticides." United States Environmental Protection Agency. USEPA, April 2007. Web. 9 May 2012.

11  United States. Dept. of Agriculture. United States Environmental Protection Agency. "Children Are at Greater Risks from Pesticide Exposure." United States Environmental Protection Agency. USEPA, April 2007. Web. 9 May 2012.



12  United States. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Center for Disease Control. "Pesticide Illness and Injury Surveillance." Center for Disease Control. Center for Disease Control. June 2013. Web. 11 September 2013.