What is a pesticide?
A poison used to kill a plant or animal which some humans consider a pest. Pesticides are sometimes classified according to what they kill – insects (insecticides), plants (herbicides), moulds (fungicides), and so on. • How widely are pesticides used? More than one pound (0.453592 kg) of pesticide is manufactured each year for every man, woman and child on the planet. And the amount used is increasing rapidly. The global agrochemical sales for 1997 was US$ 29,540 million, increased to US$ 31,000 million in 1998 and totalled up to US$ 30,070 in 1999. • If we do not use pesticides ourselves, why should we be concerned about the use of pesticides? • The pesticides that farmers apply to their crops may end up as residues on our food or as contaminants in our drinking water. • When people are poisoned by pesticides as they work in fields or factories, society is harmed by their suffering and the loss of their productivity. • Pesticides often kill birds, fish and other animals besides the ta
California Department of Pesticide Regulation People often think pesticide means insecticide. Actually, pesticide refers to not only insecticides but many other kinds of chemicals. A pesticide is any substance intended to control, destroy, repel, or attract a pest. Any living organism that causes damage or economic loss or transmits or produces disease may be the target pest. Pests can be animals (like insects or mice), unwanted plants (weeds), or microorganisms (like plant diseases and viruses). Throughout history, pests have caused problems. Dinosaurs may be extinct but a prehistoric creature of another sort, the cockroach, has been crawling the earth for 350 million years. Diseases transmitted by insects, rodents and bacteria led to epidemics of deadly diseases like bubonic plague and yellow fever. Famines resulted when locusts, molds and other pests destroyed crops. During Ireland’s great potato famine 150 years ago, a third of the nation’s population died. It was caused by a fungu
