Fugaro 1 Nicholas Fugaro Stopping Pesticide to Change Farming Imagine a chemical powerful enough to kill a disease and also

kill insects and small animals like mice. This chemical is also a multimillion dollar industry and is a big player in the global economy. Most of us eat food treated with it and do not think twice about it. This chemical is known as Pesticides and its use can vary from a plane dumping it over a field of crops to just using it to treat weeds in your driveway such as RoundUp. Although this product is useful, is it really worth the risk to our health? Pesticides can cause deadly side-effects in humans even they are only a little exposed to the chemical. These include: brain tumors, lung cancers, blindness, and many others. This deadly chemical even destroys the environment around it. Since rapid use of the product can in fact lead to a smaller yield of crops in future seasons. The best option for getting rid of our dependence on pesticides is organic farming. By switching the way we farm our food, we can change all the food groups ways of farming, such as meat and dairy. The biggest problem with pesticides is the high risk for human injury while using it. After all, it is an unnatural substance going onto things we eat and also are close to, like our lawns and gardens. In the 1940s, the insecticide (which is another form of pesticide) DDT was used to help kill insects that carried malaria and other diseases during the war. Actually in previous wars, disease killed more soldiers than weapons (Ganzel). People saw endless opportunities with the new chemical age. They knew insecticides worked wonders against the insects on the battlefield. Since farmers always had problems with insects ruining crops, it was integrated it into farming in the US (24). Most US citizens did not think twice about it being

Fugaro 2 harmful to them since it was such a new process. So people started using it around the household on their porches and lawns to prevent pests. However, flies and other insects started becoming immune to the pesticides and it had to be stopped. In 1972, the pesticide DDT was banned in the US because of the health risks involved such as cancers in small children and also birth defects with pregnant women (Levine). Also inhaling pesticides has a great risk of lung cancer (3). Getting pesticides near your eyes can also be very dangerous since it can cause blindness (4). The spreading of pesticide can even affect farmland and life that is miles away from where it was originally (Ganzel). With a spray it can catch wind and cover even more ground than it was intended. Pesticide can also land in a river or lake which not only affects the animals that inhabit the area but also it can also move further that way. Livestock can drink the water or eat the grass where the pesticide landed and can lead to sick cattle that would be either wasted because they would die or be sold not knowing they are infected and can land on your dinner table (Ganzel). Knowing all this, why wont the United States ban the use of pesticides and keep us safer? Well pesticides, sold in household or bulk quantities, are a multi-million dollar industry. It such a big industry since it is sold to large farms for crop fields and sold in all different types for household usage: for the lawn, small gardens, keeping pests out of the house, and treating weeds in driveway (RoundUp, Insecticide, and Herbicides). Banning this would really hurt not only distributers of pesticide, such Home Depot and Lowes, but also lawn care businesses that use pesticides. However, the best alternative is organic farming.

Fugaro 3 The major and best alternative is buying organic food instead of regular food that was treated with pesticide. Organic farming is a growing business since some people actually have a fear of poisons being used on their food and organic food is actually healthier since it is natural. There are over 10,000 certified organic farmers in the US and very state has certified organic farmland (Trimarchi). Any naturally occurring food you can think of, wheat, dairy, eggs, beef, and even cotton, can be organically farmed. Organic farming uses soil treated with compost, which is composed of grass trimmings, food waste, and manures (Trimarchi). It can be used in small gardens and farms. Doing this makes the soil healthier than soil treated with pesticide. The plants grown in the soil is selected to benefit the soil itself and also allows production of helpful bacteria and fungi to grow. Crop Rotation is also one of the big traits of organic farming. This involves having a patch of land for raising sheep and then the next season, growing crops on it and keeps on switching. This helps keep the soil highly fertile and help use all of the nutrients in the soil instead of focusing on one (Trimarchi). It also uses all the nutrients in the soil so it is the most productive way to farm. When most people think of organic farming they assume that it only deals with plants. Well this is definitely not the case. If getting rid of pesticides helps increase organic farming, then all forms of food will be switched over to healthier ways of raising and growing them. This includes meat and dairy. Animals are also treated very differently with organic farming. They have time go outside and actually live a decent life for an animal on a farm. While on other non-organic farms animals are just unhealthily placed into massive pits of other animals and slaughtered for food. This puts stress on the animals so they really arent healthy so eating them doesnt seem like a good idea at all since they could have health problems. Mad Cow Disease is still a big fear

Fugaro 4 of the farming industry since cows are still getting it and giving it to consumers. With the big slaughterhouses, cows and other animals are less likely to get tested for diseases. However, with organic farming, cows are actually treated very well and are kept under a close watch to ensure the cattle are healthy before they are sold (Trimarchi). Slaughterhouses also use every last bit of the animal. This is then condensed into a clump of meat and made into Pink Slime. It is a beef product that uses the rejected fat, sinew, bloody effluvia, and occasional bits of meat cut from carcasses and is then sprayed down with ammonia and dyed and shaped to look like meat (Vanderlinden). It gets its name from the way it looks when it comes out of a machine that condenses it. Pink Slime is very gooey and disgusting looking until it is reshaped to look like something edible. Organic Farming only uses the quality parts of the animal to eat. Treatment of animals also much better than organic farming; they are allowed to roam around fields and are also given a good balanced diet (Ganzel). The way our dairy is completely different than the regular way of organic farming. Typically in a non-organic farm, cows are strapped up to a milking machine for most of its life. They get them to breed way more than a normal cow is expected to. Most cows live for about 25 years and have about 8-9 years of being able to breed and produce milk (Milk Is Cruel). The most terrible one I have seen was when this big carousel of cows keep rotating and producing milk and then sent into a pen to breed with a bull to be able to produce more milk. The amount of stress but on the animals body is insane. Due to the stress, their reproduction cycles are ruined and give birth to cattle that only live a few days (Milk Is Cruel). They cant even be used as food since they are too young to get any meat off of. However, this all changes with organic farming and makes me as a consumer feel much better about buying organic. Cows and other animals, as I mentioned before, are treated much better than they are in regular mass-production

Fugaro 5 farming. They are only bred when they are truly ready to handle the stress of birth and are milked accordingly (Stonyfield Organic). When they are finished producing all they milk they can for their lifetime, they are then killed after they leave offspring to carry on a rich life as a farm animal (Stonyfield). Pesticides might be useful for keeping crops away from pesticides and is cheaper than other methods; it is still a highly dangerous chemical that can cause cancers and other autoimmune diseases. Organic farming is definitely the way to go, since it provides a richer, healthier crop than pesticides. Switching to Organic Farming, we can do away with unhealthy and unsafe way of farming all kinds of foods. Organic farmers seem to care more about the animals and food than the profit of farming. Organic Food is held to a higher standard than nonorganic food is. Although organic food is more expensive than regularly farmed food, it is definitely worth it considering the dangers of consuming non-organic foods. If we can take down pesticides, all other bad forms of farming will fall with it. I can assure this because using organic farming is intertwined with other types of farming. Doing this uses less resources and less land, which gets rid of so much wasted farmland ruined by pesticides. If we focus on using Organic Farming, we can knock down the power that pesticides have over us and we can turn the alternatives into multi-million dollar industries. We will live healthier, safer lives as Americans this way. So the next time you are in a grocery store, think twice before picking up non-organic food.

Fugaro 6 Works Cited Ganzel, Bill. "The Golden Age of Pesticides during the 1950s." The Golden Age of Pesticides during the 1950s. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2013. Levine, Marvin J. Pesticides: A Toxic Time Bomb in Our Midst. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. Print. Milk Is Cruel. "MilkIsCruel.com." MilkIsCruel.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013. Stonyfield Organic. "Humane Animal Treatment." Humane Animal Treatment, Organic Standards. N.p., 2013. Web. 01 Apr. 2013. Trimarchi, Maria. "How Organic Farming Works." HowStuffWorks. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2013. Vanderlinden, Colleen. "Pink Slime and Ammonia: Two Main Ingredients in Some Ground Beef." TLC. Planet Green, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2013.