Any chemical used in farming, gardening, or indoors to combat pests. Pesticides are of three main types: insecticides (to kill insects), fungicides (to kill fungal diseases), and herbicides (to kill plants, mainly those considered weeds). Pesticides cause a number of pollution problems through spray drift onto surrounding areas, direct contamination of users or the public, and as residues on food.
The safest pesticides include those made from plants, such as the insecticides pyrethrum and derris.
Pyrethrins are safe and insects do not develop resistance to them. Their impact on the environment is very small as the ingredients break down harmlessly.
More potent are synthetic products, such as chlorinated hydrocarbons. These products, including DDT and dieldrin, are highly toxic to wildlife and often to human beings, so their use is now restricted by law in some areas and is declining. Safer pesticides such as malathion are based on organic phosphorus compounds, but they still present hazards to health. The aid organization Oxfam estimates that pesticides cause about 10,000 deaths worldwide every year.
Pesticides were used to deforest SE Asia during the Vietnam War, causing death and destruction to the area's ecology and lasting health and agricultural problems.
In 1991 Central America was the world's highest consumer of pesticides per head of the population.
A chemical used to kill pests (as rodents or insects). + prikaži više