The Shocking Truth About Pesticides
Have you ever noticed that from time to time a newspaper or magazine will run articles on how the environmental balance is being upset by intensive agricultural methods? Pesticides and their overuse is a big problem concerning more people than you might realise.
Here are some rather shocking facts about pesticides that this website has unearthed that might be of interest to you.
Government Testing
UK Government tests have suggested that one in every four items of food that you buy contains traces of pesticides. No less than one hundred and fifty of the most commonly used pesticides are potentially cancer causing. Some pesticides cannot be washed off with water, as has been previously believed.
Around 31,000 tonnes of chemicals are used annually by farmers in the UK to kill weeds, insects and other pests that attack crops. In 2004, around 40% of the fruit, vegetable and bread samples tested in the UK contained measurable amounts of pesticides.
There is very little control over the way these potentially dangerous chemicals are used and in what quantities or combinations in the non-organic farming sector.
The Food Standards Agency now recognises that the vast majority of people do not want pesticides in their food.
How Pesticides Impact the Environment
Modern pesticides have a devastating effect on the environment. Added to that are the very real uncertainties about the actual effectiveness of official safety regulation of pesticides. Yet unbelievably their use is allowed to continue unabated despite the fact that some of the enormous risks to human health are virtually unknown.
By way of a comparison with modern, intensive farming methods, where a cocktail of pesticides are used on arable land and the crops that we commonly eat, organic farmers with the Soil Association are allowed to use (and then only as a last resort) a mere four of the 350 pesticides that are in use. Although two of these chemicals are strictly controlled, the Soil Association wants to take this further and are actually phasing out one of these completely.
All the more reason for everybody to stand up and say a resounding "NO MORE" to non-organic produce and force governments and the farming industry into changing the way they operate completely, before it's too late.
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