The Environmental Impacts of Pesticides: Understanding and Countering the Threat

pesticidesThe definition of pesticides will vary quite a bit in accordance with what a product consists of and what it’s supposed to do, but in general, pesticides as a whole can be defined as chemicals to eradicate pests and weed. Although they are often considered necessary in gardening and agriculture in particular, there can be severe environmental impacts of pesticide use.

Effect of Agricultural Pesticides on the Soil

If pesticides are being used on the plants, it’s going to get into the soil as well, which is really bad news for multiple reasons.

The chemicals in the pesticides kill helpful organisms living inside the soil, such as Aerobacter and earthworms. As they are responsible for nourishing and aerating the soil in which they thrive, their loss makes the soil lose some of its fertility every season, until it becomes completely barren and toxic.

Effect of Agricultural Pesticides on the Crops

If the soil isn’t fertile, the crops cannot be of good quality and worse still, some of the chemicals will actually make it into the plant. This means that the same chemicals will get inside anyone who consumes the crops or any products derived from those crops.

Hemp oil and other CBD products have become extremely popular, ever since the Farm Bill 2018 made hemp-derived products federally legal, but with strict restrictions on that definition.

While that’s good news for businesses and consumers, it also means that a whole new agricultural industry is now using pesticides and herbicides on a massive scale, adding to all the problems we are discussing here.

Fortunately, a few wholesale hemp oil brands like Cope are growing their hemp without using any pesticides at all. It makes the products they manufacture completely free of the health and environmental risks, which are generally associated with pesticide poisoning of people, animals and the land itself.

How Pesticides are Killing Wildlife

At this point in time, no animal is completely safe from human-induced eradication, be it directly, or indirectly. Aside from the usual problems of deforestation, hunting and removal of food sources, pesticide poisoning is another problem which is killing the wildlife.

Water contaminated by pesticides and herbicides is making its way into streams and rivers where animals drink, while the same sick animals are poisoning the predators and carrion feeders after their death.

The Impact on Bees

The phenomenon of honeybee extinction is not without its controversies, but there is no doubt about the fact that their population is shrinking, and while there are a lot of other reasons for that as well, pesticides are the prime culprit here.

It would perhaps be an overstatement of facts to state that life cannot survive without honeybees, but it would be affected severely nonetheless.

At their core, all pesticides and herbicides are basically poison, and when poison is sprinkled on a massive scale, environmental disasters are inevitable. Scientists are working towards removing carcinogens and soil-killing components from pesticides, but spreading general awareness about their impacts and usage of safe pesticides is the way forward.

Shift Frequency © 2019 – The Environmental Impacts of Pesticides

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