Pros and Cons of Pesticides - Coursework Example

Pesticides are defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2005) as "pesticide is any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest". The term pests are not limited to insects but it can also refer to plants ( weeds ), pathogens, worms, snails, mammals, fish, and even microbes. Therefore, pests are anything that can transmit or spread disease either to human beings or animals. Historically, pesticides were used in agriculture to ensure good harvest by protecting the crops from diseases.

There are natural pesticides such as neem tree or citronella plant to ward off other insects. Scarecrows commonly used to ward off crows from eating the corn. Today, the market has many types of chemical pesticides suited to just any type of pest. In 2009, paldoxins, a new class of fungicides was developed and endorsed to the public since they were considered more earth-friendly and non-toxic ( Eurekaalert, 2009). Pesticides have three major benefits to mankind, namely,1) to prevent or control organism that causes harm 2) providing economic benefits to farmers due to reduced damage of crops due to diseases 3) prevent sickness in human beings such as DDT for malaria.

Nevertheless, there is another side to this argument as pesticides can also have negative effects on the human population. The following are pathological disorders caused by certain pesticides:1. Depression - a study made by Beseler et.al ( 2008 ) revealed that private pesticide applicators who are often exposed to pesticides have an increased manifestation of depression.2. Attention-deficit disorder - Recently, it was reported that there is a possible link between pesticides used in food to the incidence of ADHD in children ( Sott.net, 2010).

The report is based on analysis of U.S. Health data where children's urine were examined to establish the difference between eating organically grown produce and produce with fertilizers.3.Parkinsons disease- A study by the Harvard School of Public Health concluded that exposure to pesticides increases the risk of Parkinson's disease by as much as 70%.