Pesticides

Biological threats are, for example, bacteria, viruses or fungal infections. These are not only threats to humans' and animals' health. In case of plants, they may severely damage the affected plant or even the entire plantation. Thus, biological threats are not only a nuisance to the farmer but can pose a threat to the population when they affect whole regions.

In many cases, these pests live on the surface of the plants. By removing the pest with disinfection techniques, the risk of a damaged plant or plantation is massively reduced.

In order to remove the threat, chemical pesticides are very often applied. These kill the viruses, fungi or bacteria. Others inhibit the reproduction mechanisms of the biological pest; still others increase the resistance of the plants to biological threats.

However, there are a number of major concerns regarding the use of pesticides:

• It is well known that pests become resistant to certain pesticides. Therefore, the dosage must be increased or combinations of pesticides must be applied. Combinations have been proven to be very successful because the combined chemicals tend to increase their effectiveness on each other.
• Since many pesticides are essentially poisons, stocks of unused pesticides pose a major environmental threat, for example in Africa or in Eastern Europe.
• According to some reports, several hundred thousand people die every year because of poisoning by pesticides. Several million people become sick.
• Pesticides have the most effect on small children, where they may affect the brain functions, the nervous system, the hormone system and fertility. Some researchers have suggested that the alarming decrease in fertility in first world countries could be related to the use of pesticides.