Video By Vice: Chemical Endangerment

Chemical Endangerment

Herbicides and pesticides contain toxic chemicals that kill other food producing crops. In the video by Vice: Savior Seeds, a sustainable farmer in Paraguay, South America whose name is unknown, told reporter Isobel Yueng that “the fumigation of herbicides disrupts the growth of many non-GMO crops, and in many cases destroys the entire crop” (12:32). Due to the organic crops being non-resistant to the herbicides, these organic crops eventually wither and parish. This catastrophe causes small scale farmers to lose profit from their unsellable crops. Meanwhile, large scale farmers are fumigating their own crops to the extent of chemicals leaking into local waterways and damaging natural ecosystems. Dr. Robert Fraley,

Eugenio Hamann, a GMO soy farmer, referring to the evolving weeds, states “Yes, we have a lot of problems with weeds because they’ve become so resistant to glyphosate that we’ve had to mix it with other products” (8:48). The worst part about this issue is the fact that these pests and weeds become tolerant to the chemicals, which causes farmers to use more of these pesticides and herbicides or even mixing these substances to control the pests and weeds. Although the potency or mixing of these chemicals becomes effective, the downside is that these potent herbicides and pesticides are now even more toxic to human health because farmers utilize larger quantities of herbicide and pesticide to get the same result. Chemicals that started off as harmless and “non-toxic” become very toxic because of the abnormal amount that is used for it to be effective.

The IARC glyphosate cancer risk assessment suggests that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans. Dr. John Mclaughlin, of the International Agency for Research on Cancer states, “Classifying anything as a carcinogenic is a red flag to anyone” (16:14). With that said, why would anyone want to be around herbicides and pesticides that could potentially cause cancer. The fact that these farmers are spreading all of these substances around their property may be the very reason for all of the pollution

In the book Agriculture and the Environment, Noel D. Uri states, “Changes in agricultural chemical use, or pest resistance to pesticides, carry potentially significant economic impacts for input suppliers, producers, and consumers. This is because chemical use appears to be cost-effective for many producers and is widespread in the agricultural sector (e.g., nearly 100 percent of some major crops receive herbicide applications) (8).” This statement carries significance because although the use of chemicals appears to be cost-effective, factors such as pest resistance to pesticides, may force input suppliers to find an alternatively effective chemical. Which in turn, will cost producers more money to purchase, ultimately causing the price of crops to be raised to a higher expense, and this affects the consumers who pay more money for their produce. Now if you think about this trickle effect, one can see how the use of chemicals in agricultural practices has affected the economy of several social classes in a matter of years. All of these expenses could have been avoided if the original technique was maintained and the crops would then still be sustained without the addition of