IMPACT OF PESTICIDES ON HUMAN HEALTH.by | 18-09-2017 17:37 |
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  Before unpacking the ways in which pesticides can negatively influence human health, it is important to remember the many mechanisms through which they can be beneficial to health. Most directly, the use of pesticides reduces the incidence of harmful pests, which can severely limit yields, contribute to both preand post-harvest losses, or even directly impact human health as disease-carrying vectors. This increase in yields and food availability should translate into increased incomes, decreased malnutrition, and improved human health for farming households. In particular, herbicide use reduces the drudgery associated with hand-weeding, which may increase quality of life and decrease energy expenditure as well as physical hardship and risk of injury. Indirectly, farmers benefit through revenue gains from more marketable agricultural surplus or the reduced need to buy food, both of which facilitate the purchase and consumption of nutrient-rich 6 foods or better health-related practices (like visiting a doctor preemptively, procuring medicines, purchasing and using a mosquito net to prevent malaria, etc.). Similarly, if these pesticides are laborsaving technologies and relatively less expensive than the human time needed as a substitute, then farmers enjoy increased profits not only from increased revenues but also from redConsumers benefit through increased food supply which should result in decreased food prices in areas not well integrated into national and global food markets. This may be a particularly important point in developing countries where increased access to food may mean healthier communities and more energy to engage in the labor market productively. Release of labor from manual agricultural tasks may also contribute to more vibrant and economically diverse rural areas. Further afield, controlling pests on export crops can mean the containment (geographically) of pests that could potentially cause negative effects in other countries? farming systems. In sum, the prospective gross gains from pesticide use are considerable costs of other agricultural inputs, should all else remain constant. But with these gains comes the potential for real costs. Pesticides, depending on their class and type, are often toxic to humans. Harmful encounters with these chemicals can occur in a number of situations. Most directly, farmers or other agricultural laborers applying chemicals to crops risk contact via exposed skin and eyes, both of which can absorb chemicals at potentially toxic levels, or through ingestion via the mouth and nose. Beyond the time of application, contact with chemical residues during other agricultural tasks (like weeding, thinning, and harvesting) can also be problematic. Limiting exposure is possible by wearing protective clothing and utilizing other equipment that keeps the chemicals away from thr body. Non-agricultural laborer members of a farm household with pesticide application are also likely to come into contact with these pesticides. Other household members — particularly children — are likely to walk through or play in fields with chemical treatment, especially those located near dwellings. The storage of chemicals, especially in open containers, in close proximity to where household members congregate, eat, or sleep is another way for household members to come into contact with harmful substance.Furthermore, rural agricultural households with limited resources often reuse pesticide containers. Where residues are not entirely cleaned from a container?s internal surface and family members will ingest the contents later put into the containers (collected water, stored grains, etc.), the potential for also consuming pesticide residues is high. Applied pesticides can also pollute the environment from which rural households critically depend and derive livelihoods, indirectly affecting human health. Pesticides used in high amounts or applied at inappropriate times (e.g., directly before rainfall) could contribute to chemical run-off and the 8 contamination of drinking water for the surrounding rural population. Pesticides also tend to damage agricultural soils through the degradation of beneficial soil microorganisms and the sorption or binding of important organic or mineral components. SOURCE: http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/files/papers/Sheahan%20Barrett%20Goldvale%20-%20SSA%20pesticide%20and%20human%20health%20paper%20Mar%202017%20final.pdf
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