Agrochemicals refer to chemical products such as fertilisers, pesticides, and plant-growth hormones used to manage agricultural ecosystems. Many food producers utilize these chemicals to control crop diseases, manage pests, and enhance environmental conditions for plant growth. Ultimately, the main goal of using these agrochemicals is to increase crop yields.
The practice of using agricultural inputs to enhance crop yields is not a recent phenomenon. For instance, Pyrethrum extracted from chrysanthemum flowers is an example of an agricultural input that has been used for thousands of years to manage pests (Hill, 2012). Over time, the industry developed increasingly complex chemistries to cope with new challenges and different grower needs (Sparks & Lorsbach, 2017).
Today, many growers use different types of agrochemicals for a wide variety of reasons. According to Hill (2012), pesticides can prolong growing seasons, allow farmers to grow crops in places where they would not have been able to grow, and prevent the spread of diseases. These chemicals have enabled many farmers to cope with the multiple challenges they face on their farms.
However, there are numerous environmental and public health concerns associated with agrochemical use (Hill, 2012). During the application process, farmers are exposed to high concentrations of agrochemicals in the air. Communities in the vicinity might also be exposed to agrochemicals when their water sources become contaminated due to agricultural activities. There are also concerns around consumer exposure to chemical residues that remain on food. Not to mention, agrochemicals have significant carbon footprints (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Changes in carbon emissions from agrochemicals and agricultural energy inputs in China
With that being said, there appears to be a long-term need to develop new agrochemicals to deal with challenges in food production:
- Pest resistance renders old chemicals increasingly useless and drives the demand for new chemicals (Sparks & Lorsbach, 2017).
- The emergence of new pests and the resurgence of old pests present persistent ecological problems that require intervention (Pretty & Bharucha, 2015).
- Stricter regulatory requirements to minimise the impacts of agrochemicals are likely to phase out older chemicals that do not meet new standards (Sparks & Lorsbach, 2017).
With the agrochemical industry booming in the face of food insecurity due to climate change, there is an urgent need to ensure the responsible use of these products. In the coming weeks, this blog will dive deeper into how agrochemicals pollute the environment and explore potential solutions that could resolve the problems in the industry.
References
Hill, M. (2010). Pesticides. Understanding Environmental Pollution (pp. 456-482). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511840654.017
Pretty, J., & Bharucha, Z. P. (2015). Integrated pest management for sustainable intensification of agriculture in Asia and Africa. Insects (Basel, Switzerland), 6(1), 152-182. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects6010152
Sparks, T. C., & Lorsbach, B. A. (2017). Perspectives on the agrochemical industry and agrochemical discovery. Pest Management Science, 73(4), 672-677. https://doi.org/10.1002/ps.4457
Wang, X. (2016). Changes in CO2 Emissions Induced by Agricultural Inputs in China over 1991–2014. Sustainability, 8(5), 414. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8050414