Why Do We Use Pesticides In Economic Cost?

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Pages: 5

In the United States of America, we lose a tremendous of money due to the utilization of pesticides: public health $1.1 billion per year, pesticide resistance in pests, $1.5 billion; crop losses caused by pesticides, $1.4 billion; bird losses due to pesticides, $2.2 billion; and groundwater contamination, $2.0 billion per year! (Pimentel, 2005) But there are also many good things that pesticides do for our agriculture. Thesis statement: Today we often look for the healthiest produce out there, organic with no pesticide use, but is it costing our society more in economic costs? In agriculture they use pesticides to keep bugs off the crops, keep the crops growing healthy, and to get the biggest yield possible in the field. Many say that all the pesticides damage the crops, costs a whole heap of money, and can hurt the people who eat it. In this paper I will explore all these elements in detail. …show more content…
But, what do we truly know about them? Some believe all the pesticides do is kill the bugs and weeds that try to disturb the development or harm the crop. As it may be true to a point, I believe there are many benefits to using pesticides on crops in agriculture. One major benefit to pesticides is that they kill pests, such as weeds, insects, and plant pathogens. “In the USA, approximately 500 million kg of more than 600 different pesticide types are applied annually at a cost of $10 billion” (Pimentel, 2005). Even with all the pesticides being used in the US, pests still destroy 37% of all potential crops, insects 13%, plant pathogens 12% and weeds 12%. Thus, for every dollar put into pesticides, about $4 in protected crops are returned (Pimentel,