Pesticides include insecticides, herbicides and fungicides, which kill insects, weeds, and are harmful to humans. They often have direct or indirect effects on other living things. Synthetic pesticides are chemical compounds; some are more toxic than others. Synthetic pesticides can release compounds that are more toxic than the original pesticides when they break down in the environment. Some called persistent materials just "hang around" and don't break down for long periods of time. Botanical pesticides, almost all of which are insecticides, are derived directly from plants or animals. It breaks down rapidly in the environment, usually in a matter of hours or days, and are not known to accumulate in the environment. Materials such as lead arsenate, salt, copper, soap, sulfur, oil and wood ashes, have been used as pesticides with varying levels of success and varying rates of toxicity. Most are still used today, fortunately with a better understanding of their effects. No pesticide is considered "safe." Using pesticides may be necessary at times, but in many c

One can understand Alice Evans’ concern because pesticides are very often considered the number one method in an efficient productivity even though it has several negative environmental impacts. However, the alternatives listed earlier can be taken into consideration. The comment from Alice Evens can be agreed because from research and crops data, it is shown that pests are able to resist pesticides after a certain time. Like a bacteria population, the resistant genes linger around, forming more strong genes. Because of that, pesticides continuations are needed to control the pest population. There is not much to do but to keep on adding more pesticides.

In response to Maurice Gordon’s comment, one can disagree with his statement because there is not enough evidence to prove that without pesticides, starvation will become a problem. However, there are many reasons to believe that alternatives may have a greater benefit to the environment as well as effective in productivity. Besides pesticides, there are controls such as biological, cultivation methods, genetic, pheromones and hormones, and Quarantine. Th

Some topics in this essay:
Alice Evens, Controversy Pesticides, Maurice Gordon’s, Robert Rodriguez, Alice Evans’, plants animals, cottony-cushion scale, Pesticide Agriculture, vidalia beetle, resist pests, pesticides fertilizers, synthetic pesticides, pheromones hormones, street drains, fish aquatic, biological controls,