How pesticides affect the environment and our health

Pesticides are chemicals that farmers use to kill insects, weeds and other pests in their farms (and homes too!). In developing countries like ours, the improper use of pesticides by farmers is causing human illnesses.

The connection between pesticide use and human health can be the result of two mechanisms: one, pesticides pollute the environment and the polluted environment (soil and groundwater) causes health problems; second, the pesticides cause poisoning due to direct exposure to these toxic chemicals. The first mechanism is indirect, slow (but sure!) and not easily observable that is why we usually are not aware of it or we just ignore it. The second mechanism is direct. It can be slow or dramatic but affects mostly the farmers who are applying or handling the chemicals and their family members who are working in the farm.

Many farmers are directly exposed to pesticide poisoning due to lack of proper safety gadgets or due to wrong methods of application. Pesticides enter the human body through skin contact, ingestion, and inhalation. Acute symptoms of pesticide poisoning include dizziness, vomiting, cramps, and coma. Chronic symptoms (meaning, symptoms that continue for a long time) include liver and kidney damage, sterility, change in blood count, formation of tumors, allergies, and skin alterations. Unexplained health problems of people in rural areas maybe due to pesticide poisoning.

This is not of course to say that pesticides are not important. In many cases they are necessary to have a good crop harvest. But the farmers need to be properly guided on the proper way of applying these chemicals to avoid poisoning and to make sure that the crops they grow (which we consume!) and the water we drink are free from the toxic pesticides. (Acknowledgement: Photo above was taken & modified from www.roamingtimes.com/environment/pesticides.asp).