By Memory Chundu
Pesticides have been used for a long period to kill pests and protect crops, since the early 1940s, when dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane was first launched, ushering in a new era in man’s struggle against pests and pathogens.
These are noxious organic and inorganic compounds used to kill or restrict the population expansion of harmful organisms.
Pesticides are harmful chemicals that are used to kill pests, but can also be dangerous to human health. Fruits and vegetables can absorb these chemicals from the environment, so its important to remove them before eating.
However, pesticide technologies have continued to generate a wide range of pesticides, providing adequate food supply to meet consumer demand, and these pesticides are considered an important tool for crop protection and growth, but they are harmful to the environment.
Pesticide overuse can lead to biodiversity loss and destruction. Pesticides are harmful to a variety of creatures, including birds, aquatic animals, and mammals. Pesticides are a key source of anxiety for the long-term survival of our planet.
An alternative pest management and control strategy, such as integrated pest management (IPM), can be helpful to minimize the number and volume of pesticide treatments by integrating several control measures, like cultural control, the use of resistant genotypes, and physico-mechanical control along with chemical control.
Furthermore, advances in biotechnology and nanotechnology may make it simpler to develop herbicides with fewer adverse effects or resistant genotypes along with a lower dose of herbicides.
In Zambia Participatory Ecological Land Use Management –PELUM – is encouraging farmers to use other means of preventing their crops in fields instead of using pesticides to control the pests.
According to PELUM Zambia programs manager Wilfred Miga a lot of farmers uses pesticides to protect their crops from destroyed.
Most farmers in Zambia have been struggling to contain the outbreak of army worms in their fields thereby using pesticides. He said when these pesticides are used in the fields they are harmful to other soil organisms and creatures.
“Crop rotation, selection of crop plant varieties, timing of planting and harvesting, and irrigation management are important practices in reducing populations of weeds, microorganisms, insects, mites, and other pests in agricultural crops, explained Mr. Miga.
Crop rotation, selection of crop plant varieties helps rejuvenate the soil and prevents pests.
He said crop rotation helps to break the life cycle of pests and can reduce the need for pesticides. Mr. Miga adds that the selection of crop plant varieties can also help to reduce the populations of pests.
“There is absolutely no need to use pesticides in private homes and gardens. The greatest role model for conventional agriculture to get away from its pesticide addition are agroecological approaches used in organic farming, permaculture, and regenerative agriculture that have demonstrated to function well without synthetic pesticides, said Mr. Miga.
He said the key in this respect is a systems perspective which not only considers agricultural measures at the field level (improving soil health, crop rotations, crop diversity) but also improves the surrounding landscape structure (non-crop habitats, increased biodiversity).
Although agriculture without synthetic pesticides can have lower yields, many studies show that the growing world population could still be fed.
Further Mr. Miga says the use chemicals in crops production has contributed to the increase in non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, obesity, heart diseases among others.
He has noted that most of the herbicides administered in crops such as Glyphosate have negative health effects in the long term which include the retardation of the brain. Mr. Miga has observed that most of the diseases people are suffering such as cancer is because of some of these chemicals being administered in crops calling on farmers to practice agroecology which reduces the prevalence and chances of using pesticides.
It is important to ensure that when buying vegetables such as tomatoes, rape, cabbage among others it is chemical free to prevent yourself from some diseases that may come after consuming these vegetables ,he says.