Pesticides have not been as effective in reducing crop losses in United States as agriculture experts hoped. Pesticides can promote genetic resistance to their effects, wipe out natural enemies of pests species, create new pests species, end up in the environment, and sometimes harm wildlife and people.
Use of synthetic pesticides increased 33 fold since 1942 whereas 37% food supply is lost to pests today compared to 31% in 1940s. Since 1942, loses attributed to insects almost doubled from 7 to 13% despite a 10 fold increase in synthetic insecticides.
The estimated environmental, health and social cost of pesticides was in the range of 100-200 billions USD per year. Alternative pest management practices could halve the use of chemical pesticides on forty major US crops without reducing crop yield.
In fact, yield me actually increased without chemical pesticides. Sweden has reduced pesticides use with almost no decrease in crop yield. After a 2/3rd cut in pesticide use on rice in Indonesia yields increased by 15%.
The pesticides make a circle of poison, residue of some banned/approved chemicals exported to other countries can return to the exporting countries on imported food.
According to a study, only 0.1 - 0.2% of insecticides applied to crop by aerial or ground spraying reaches the target pests and can undergo bioaccumulation and bio-magnification.
The wind can also carry persistent organic pesticide such as DDT from one country to another. In 2000, more than hundred countries reached an international agreement to ban or phase out the use of twelve specially hazardous persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and nine of them were persistent hydrocarbon pesticide such as DDT and other chemically similar pesticides.
Which of the following characteristics of synthetic chemical pesticides is NOT globally true?
