Untitled Document

Introduction
Every day, new worries arise concerning over-population and the future of earth. People are afraid of starvation and endemic diseases. The problem with present food production is not of land shortage, but of yields too low to feed a doubled world population. Plant geneticists are creating hybrid plants that have higher yields and more resistance to unwanted and harmful organisms. Even with the new plants, pesticides must be applied to reap the hybrid's full potential.

What follows is some common misconceptions about pesticides and their use. Humans ingest about 10,000 times more naturally occurring pesticides than they do man-made ones. In fact, the risk you expose yourself to by drinking a daily glass of apple juice from fruit treated with the pesticide Alar is 58 times less than the hazard of consuming natural carcinogens in one mushroom. Pesticide residues remain only on the surface of produce. They are not absorbed by fruits or vegetables. Rinsing with clear running water will remove most of any trace residues. Organic food growers often use pesticides derived from natural sources to protect their crops. Many man-made pesticides are less toxic than naturally-occurring ones. Without the availability of crop protection products, it is estimated that current world fruit and vegetable production would decline by as much as 40% and fruit and vegetable prices would increase by up to 70% (Crop Protection Institute, 1997). Even with today's technology, food production would be considerably lower and the number of individuals suffering from malnutrition would be dramatically increased if pesticides were not used.

Changes in Farming
Farming has changed and advanced incredibly in the last two hundred years. A major change that has occurred, especially in the last century, has been the number of people for whom farming is their major source of income. It used to be very common for a family to farm and grow enough for themselves and maybe have some left over to sell. In 1787, 90% of the U.S. population lived and worked on a farm. Later, in 1950, the number of individuals who were farming as a career was only 16%. They each produced enough food for themselves and 27 others (Byrd, Shaw, and Webster, 1997).

Today, with the rise of corporate farms, higher taxes, huge incentives to develop farm land, and low food prices, small farms are going out of business and not producing food anymore. In the 1990's, only 2% of the American people actively farmed. Even though there is a decrease in farming, each farm produces at least enough food for 120 people plus themselves. These 120 additional people include 95 people from the U.S. and 25 who live overseas (Byrd, Shaw, and Webster, 1997). Another reason for this decrease in farms is the increase number of factories and other better paying and more secure jobs. Farmers have found that it is easier to have a factory job than to farm.

However, with new technology and mechanization, farming has changed. Tractors have replaced horses, cultivators and herbicides/pesticides have replaced hoes and hand work. These advancements have enabled the farmer to produce more, healthier food without increasing the land acreage. Clearly, more food must be produced with an ever growing population. Even with the shrinking number of farms, crop yields are increasing.

Pesticides
Pesticides are chemicals, both naturally and synthetically occurring, which are used to help control and kill fungi, insects, and weeds. Not only do farmers use them in growing crops, but homeowners use them in their gardens, pools, lawns, houses, and on pets. Since there has been a very large increase in population, farmers have come to rely more and more on pesticides to help them in increasing yields and guaranteeing better food production. There are over thirty thousand weeds that affect crop production world wide. With these weeds are thousands of nematode species and ten thousand species of insects that eat and destroy crops. "It is estimated that one third of the world's food crop is destroyed by these pests annually" (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 1997).

Pesticides combine with host plant resistance and mechanical and biological tactics to control unwanted pests. When used improperly, pesticides are sometimes toxic to humans, animals, and plants. Some of the early insecticides and fungicides were highly toxic and contained heavy metals. Fortunately, these pesticides are no longer approved for use today. Now, with new technology, pesticides are much less toxic to the applicator and the environment, but at the same time are controlling unwanted pests.

Government intervention
It seems popular to say that pesticides are deadly. People are frightened of pesticide residues. However, with government regulations, manufacturers and users ensure that the pesticides are safe for use. The EPA requires testing of all pesticides produced. Even with today's strict requirements, the EPA has made mistakes in the past. The most famous is the use of DDT. DDT was an insecticide used to control wide spread insect infestation. Some of these insects did carry diseases. However, the chemical characteristics found in DDT were amplified in higher organisms and severe damage was done to the higher life forms. Today, DDT's registration is canceled in the U.S.

Every manufactured pesticide must be registered with the EPA. In order to be registered, the pesticide must pass a series of approved guidelines that make sure it is safe for the environment, people, and animals. The "EPA evaluates the toxicity of the pesticides and its residues, the ecological effects of the use of that product, and assesses the effects of environmental and applicator exposure to the product, including carcinogenicity with prolonged exposure" (Byrd, Shaw, and Webster, 1997). Pesticides are evaluated for any immediate harm to people through ingestion, skin contact, breathing fumes, and spills in eyes. Also, they are tested for long term effects by using extended low dosage tests. All pesticides are checked for their ability to cause birth defects, cancer, reproduction problems, and mutations. If any chemical poseS a risk, the EPA does not grant it's approval.

The EPA sets the legal limits at 100 times below the level that might actually harm humans and the environment. Once the limits are set, the FDA enforces them by sampling foods, both from the U.S. and abroad. Random samples are monitored for pesticide residues. The testing usually incorporates the normal preparation and consumption of the food. If produce or crops contain a high residue level, they are pulled from the market and banned from sale in the United States. The evaluation methods are updated continually as new pesticides and safety concerns arise.

Misconceptions
Since November 1, 1984, more than 1,150 active ingredients have had to be reregistered (Byrd, Shaw, and Webster, 1997). These previously registered pesticides had been retested for toxicity. During testing, new safety concerns arose. Even though the concerns were not life threatening to humans, it was the EPA's decision to make the manufactures reregister the chemical. The new registration fee is increased in order to deter manufactures from producing more of the chemical. If a company does pay the new registeration fee, which is extremely high, the company generally increases the prices of the product. This increase deters farmers from buying the pesticide. If the pesticide is not reregistered, then no more can be produced, sold, or used.

Even though the EPA allows small amounts of pesticide residue on food products, it does not mean that there is a risk to one's health. The EPA has concluded that even with prolonged exposure to pesticide residue, no harm will come from the consumption of contaminated food. For some people, even a little residue is too much. They want new regulations made to strictly eliminate all residue. They claim that residues increase cancer risks. Others assume that synthetic chemical residues in food are dangerous and that the natural occurring chemicals in plants are not. It was concluded over 400 years ago that the dose of a toxin made it toxic, not the substance. Paracelsus, who made this early conclusion, also stated that if consumed in large enough quantities, everything is dangerous (Byrd, Shaw, and Webster, 1997).

Dr. Bruce Ames, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, has led the argument that man-made chemicals in pesticides are not directly related to cancer. He refuted some misconceptions that exist in the popular community. For example, he said that "injecting rats with massive doses of a chemical, the standard test for determining cancer risk of pesticides and pollutants, cannot measure risks to humans exposed to only low doses. Tumors found in these hapless rats are often caused simply by the high dose itself, which damages cells and causes their division" (Spencer, 1993).

The second misconceived issue is that most carcinogens and other know toxins are man-made. "99.99% of the `pesticides' we consume occur naturally in plants, nature's attempt at protecting them from being eaten. When injected in rats in high doses, these chemicals cause cancer as frequently as do the synthetic ones". Dr. Ames explains that "our bodies don't care whether a chemical is synthetic or natural. At low doses we have these elaborate defense systems that work the same way for both. It just doesn't make any sense that the pesticide residue on a tomato is doing us any more harm than the natural pesticide in the tomato" (Spencer, 1993).

We must keep in mind that every day we are exposed to these natural chemicals and carcinogens. A good example of this is that there are more known carcinogens in a cup of coffee than the amount of pesticide residue on all the food one could eat in a year. On top of this, only 26 of the more than 1000 chemicals in coffee have been tested for toxicity. In 1992 Dr. Ames found that broccoli, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, mustard, potatoes, pears, and basil all contain rodent carcinogens classified by the EPA. Ames concluded that, "unless you wade around in the stuff, pesticides don't cause cancer. That's the bottom line" (Spencer, 1993).

Pesticides and controlling diseases
Some people claim that children are at especially high risk when it comes to pesticide residues. They assert that because a child is smaller, there is a increase in the body's pesticide concentration. Pesticide residues have been consumed for more than 50 years. Yet even with this long span, there has not been any increases in the rates of cancer, birth defects, or neurological damage. However, when children do not eat fruits and vegetables, the risk is increased for both cancer and heart disease (Hastings, 1993).

Pesticides are also very useful in controlling sicknesses. Most people do not know that there have been millions of lives saved by using pesticides. A good example of how pesticides have benefited human health directly is DDT. DDT was used in the mid-century to control malaria-bearing mosquitoes. Also, pesticides are used in controlling other insects, some of which carry western equine encephalitis, influenza, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and scarlet fever (Byrd, Shaw, and Webster, 1997). Clearly, without controlling agents, millions of people could either be dead or ill with diseases.

Natural toxins can also be suppressed using pesticides. In some grains and oilseeds, there are bacteria or fungi that produce toxins and mycotoxins. In fact, it has been estimated that up to "one quarter of the world's cereals and oilseeds are contaminated with such toxins". Aflatoxin, a natural toxin from moldy corn and peanuts, is a potent carcinogen. Between 1974-1975 about 100 people died in India when 200 villages tried to consume aflatoxin contaminated corn. Aflatoxins can even be transmitted to humans indirectly. Dairy cattle will transfer the aflatoxin into the milk when fed contaminated feed. Humans, after consuming contaminated food sources, are highly susceptible to cancer of the liver and gastrointestinal hemorrhage (Avery, 1995).

In order to minimize and avoid the mycotoxins, preventative measures must occur. These start with controlling insects and rodent damage in the field. By using pesticides in the fields, plant damage is decreased. It is the damage to the plant where these bacteria and fungi gather and produce the mycotoxins. When pests are controlled diseases can be prevented (Avery, 1995).
Jim E. Riviere, the director of the Cutaneous Pharmacology and Toxicology Center at North Carolina State University also agrees with the facts that science and technology have improved food safety. He admits that in the past our food supply was contaminated with chemicals. However, with the increase in technology and science, food monitoring has become better and more stringent. The danger of some of the low level pesticides that are found as residues on food is over blown. The presence of these low level residues is known only because of advances in analytical chemistry, science of risk assessment, and biotechnology to show minute levels which have no effect at all (Riviere, 1994).

Use of Pesticides
Those people who try to grow their own produce organically know exactly how hard and time consuming it is to do so. Insects, fungi, and weeds all wreak havoc on fields and gardens. Unless people spend most of their time with their crops, which would raise prices, they need help from agricultural technology. "Most present-day pesticides are vastly improved from those of 30 years ago; chemicals in use today are toxic to insects, but the residues in food are harmless to humans" (Riviere, 1994).

Organic farmers know how hard it is to grow high yielding crops. In fact, some crops would be in serious danger if pesticides did not play a role in their farming process. Horticultural researchers with Texas A&M University studied the effects of not using pesticides for fruits and vegetables production. The research compared the organic alternative with the costs of not using pesticides. It was concluded that the yields of both fruits and vegetables would dramatically drop without pesticides. Potato yields would drop 50% while fruits like oranges would decrease to around 55%. The highest estimated loss would be almost 100% to commercial apple orchards (Avery, 1995).

The research down at Texas A&M University was backed up from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (ERS). By using analysis of the impact of banning soil fumigants, potato yields would be sharply reduced. The cost consumers would have to endure would approximately be 3 billion dollars. The price level would eventually lower when more organic farmers flooded the market with products (Avery, 1995).

Conclusion
If you still are worried about the minuscule levels of pesticides found on foods, the tested and documented levels from the FDA and EPA clearly show that they do not have any effects on humans. "The pesticide levels found on the produce described in some articles are often 10 to 100 times lower than the approved level. Even if one apple got through the system with a marginally higher level, there's no danger". Speaking of apples, the seeds of apples contain minuscule amounts of cyanide. These levels are also found in lima beans, cherries, apricots, and peaches. This poison is the plant's natural defense system (Riviere, 1994). We must keep in mind that regulations are in place to protect us and that there is no harm from the very, very small amounts of pesticide residue.

Pesticides on our food are not even a problem with our food. Over the last 30 years, billions of dollars have been spent in studying the risks that are supposedly to be associated with pesticides. At the same time, billions are spent to find organic pest controls. Ironically, there has yet to be one human victim directly related to pesticide residue (Avery, 1995).
Even with strict EPA and FDA rules and regulations, farmers and other users must be responsible in their use of pesticides. We, as good stewards of the land, must make conscious choices whether or not to use pesticides. God has given us many gifts and responsibilities. As caretakers of this world, we must be aware of what actions we take. If using certain chemicals would increase food production, but at the same time hurt the environment, what should we do. There are many factors which good stewards must consider. We must also remember that what we do today will greatly effect our children of tomorrow. Being well educated in the use of pesticides is one of the first steps in determining when and where we should use chemicals. Looking at the facts and not the misconceptions, the positive effects of pesticides overshadow the negative ones.

Bibliography

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. (1997). The Pros and Cons of Pesticides [Online]. Available: http://www.ns.ec.gc.ca/epb/factsheets/pesticides/pro_con.html [1997, September 28].

Avery, Dennis T. (1995, June). How Pesticides Help Prevent Cancer. Consumers' Research Magazine, pp. 11-12.

Byrd, John D. Jr., Ph.D., David R. Shaw, Eric P. Webster (1997). PesticidesBenefits and Risks [Online]. http://www.ces.msstate.edu/pubs/pub1962.htm [1997, October 7].

Crop Protection Institute. (1997). Facts & History of Pesticides [Online]. http://www.cropro.org/history.html [9/16/97].

Hastings, John. (1993, September). Do Pesticides on Fruits and Vegetables Threaten Children?. Health, p. 12.

Riviere, Jim E. (1994, August 8). Stop Worrying and Eat Your Salad. Newsweek, p. 8.

Spencer, Leslie. (1993, October 25). Ban All Plants-They Pollute. Forbes, pp. 104-108.