Overuse Of Pesticides In Agriculture

In today’s time, our world’s knowledge of agriculture has decreased in the last hundred years, but even more in agricultural activity. In 1860, seventy-five percent of the United States was involved somehow in agricultural production, now that percentage is less and two percent. As our nation continues to increase in population so does the need for agricultural products and land. With land being used more for settlement and buildings than for farming, being able to provide enough food for our nation alone has become a hard task for the farmers of today. Since there is such a small percentage supplying our nation with food the soil that farmers use to grow crops are losing their minerals, the crops being produced are losing much of their key nutrients, the harvests are more vulnerable to harmful organisms, diseases, and insect damage, farmers are having to put more pesticides on the crops to keep them from being infected, and scientists are making more hygienic plants to help farmers use a smaller amount of pesticides but have unknown side effects to humans.
Almost any crop needs soil to stay alive because plants use soil as their solid, holds the plant up as it starts to sprout and gives plants the …show more content…
Although pesticides are a quick and easy way to get rid of insects, there is consequences when they are used repeatedly to the same patch of land. Overuse of pesticides will change the soil composition because of the chemicals in the pesticides (Soil Erosion and Degradation). Applying this foreign substance to the soil will cause the soil to go under stress, resulting in less likely to be fighting against disease and healing from climate or insect damage. Another resulting factor from overuse of chemicals is the pesticides being used on overgrazed land the chemicals are getting in our water supply because the soil is so broken down that it is harder for the water to