Month: June 2020

#3: Why Pollution of Human Synthesised Chemicals are Widespread

Welcome back! Today we explore why pollution caused by human synthesised chemicals used in agriculture are so widespread.

The key property that these chemicals possess is their PERSISTENCE.

They are usually very stable organic compounds, especially since most of them are halogenated. They do not degrade easily, lasting in the environment for very long periods of time, even up to a few decades. This persistence is also determined by the surrounding environment and climate, where the pesticides persist 3-8 times longer in cold climates compared to temperate ones. Such chemicals contaminate the air, soil and groundwater.

Hence, when such pesticides are applied, they tend to have widespread and prolonged effect on all the humans, wildlife and organisms. At the target site, the pesticides may enter the surface waters or volatilise into air after being sprayed. The excess pesticides applied onto the crops may also leak into groundwater sources. From the surface waters, the pesticides may reach the aquatic organisms, including those in the sediments. From the air, the pesticides may also get deposited onto the soil.

Due to their persistence, the pesticides are able to see through many different stages of natural environment processes to contaminate and remain in air, soil and water sources.

This is a compressed summary, to find out more, head to this link https://www.who.int/ceh/capacity/Pesticides.pdf provided by the World Health Organization.

 

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#2: Why Human Synthesised Chemicals are so Attractive

Hi everyone!

Today we bring to you a short introduction about the usage of toxic chemicals in agriculture, highlighting the more prominent ones, which are so persistent in our environment.

The use of pesticides in agriculture is not something new, in fact it has been with us since 2000BC, where elemental sulfur was used. However, only in the past 100 years or so, did humans create the first man-made pesticides. There were so many advantages of using them.

One of the earliest and most heavily used pesticide was Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloride (DDT). It was first synthesised in 1874 by an Austrian chemist named Othmar Zeidler. After many years, in 1939, Swiss chemist Paul Muller found it to be very effective in killing insects. DDT came rapidly to the United States, with rampant usage of this newly found chemical. For discovering DDT’s unique insecticidal properties, Paul Muller received the Nobel Prize in 1948. Since this discovery was well received, approximately 1,350,000,000 pounds of DDT was used 30 years before its ban in the US. DDT wasn’t expensive yet extremely effective, giving lots of yield to farmers of cotton, soybean and peanut as compared to without the pesticide.

Decades later, DDT is still a ‘silent’ killer

Another really toxic man-made chemical used as herbicides was 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D). It got widespread recognition in 1944 and from then on its usage quickly accelerated. 2,4-D was termed as the ‘wonder drug’, where it could kill more weeds than any amount that could possibly grow. Furthermore, the actual food crop (corn) was left untouched!

Amazon.com : Southern Ag Amine 24-D Weed Killer, White Bottle ...

Now we all know why such usage of chemicals in agriculture was so widespread and prevalent.

 

Photo credits:

https://www.sustainability-times.com/environmental-protection/decades-later-ddt-pesticide-is-still-a-silent-killer/

https://weedkillerguide.com/for-lawns/

References:

Archive.epa.gov. 1975. DDT Regulatory History: A Brief Survey (To 1975) | About EPA | US EPA. [online] Available at: <https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/ddt-regulatory-history-brief-survey-1975.html> [Accessed 24 June 2020].

Ganzel, B., n.d. Herbicides Like 2,4-D Introduced During The 1940S. [online] Livinghistoryfarm.org. Available at: <https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/pests_03.html> [Accessed 24 June 2020].

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#1: Fertilisers… oh fertilisers…

Hello everyone, welcome to our blog and our very first post! As the title goes, an obvious hint about the topic of this post would be about fertilisers!

Agricultural farming has been around for ages. With the advancement in technology, humans have found new efficient and effective ways to grow plantations to produce goods to feed the entire world. And with the growing demand for food quality and stock, it is inevitable that humans would look forth to find ways to improve the growth of our food. And here’s where our handy dandy fertilisers come in!

 

 

 

 

 

So, what actually does fertilisers contain? Let’s take a common fertiliser, urea, for example. Urea, like many other fertilisers, is a nitrogenous fertiliser that we apply into our agricultural fields and plantations. Simply put, it is really harmful for humans to ingest high amounts of nitrogen compounds (10 – 45 and above mg/l). Researchers have shown that too much nitrogen levels in our drinking waters could potentially be considered to be carcinogenic and a causative factor for “blue” babies. (Who knew not only should we avoid unhealthy burnt food; we need to avoid high nitrogen concentration drinking water!) “Blue” baby is a terrifying defect that happens to pregnant women who ingest high nitrogen concentration water. The result could potentially be their babies forming malfunctioned hearts resulting in low oxygen circulation, turning them blue.

There are of course standard guidelines for drinking water emplaced by WHO to abide by (I will leave the reference link below). With the high amounts of fertilisers that is required in our farming nowadays, it is truly worrisome to think about the possible agricultural run-offs due to rain or watering of plantations that end up into our groundwaters. This is especially so that we have scarce water resources (only 0.62% of water on Earth is available) and groundwater is one of our water sources that require the least amount of cleaning. However, when these nitrogen compounds are too high that it goes beyond WHO standards, removal is required using advanced technology and it is really very expensive even for developed countries to afford!

If you think about it, we produce our food to poison our limited scarce water resources. What an irony that we are harming ourselves for our own demands for food! But with that being said, is it possible we can find a way to grow our food efficiently and effectively without slowly poisoning ourselves? Perhaps we will leave that to another blog post! For now, take care and stay safe folks! 😊

References:

Agrawal, G., Lunkad, S. and Malkhed, T., 1999. Diffuse agricultural nitrate pollution of groundwaters in India. Water Science and Technology, [online] 39(3), pp.67-75. Available at: <https://iwaponline.com/wst/article-pdf/39/3/67/36089/67.pdf> [Accessed 25 June 2020].

  1. Rolling Revision Of WHO Guidelines For Drinking-Water Quality. Geneva: World Health Organization.

Picture referenced from:

  1. [image] Available at: <https://www.swiss-singapore.com/knowledge-hub/changing-dynamics-of-urea-trade-in-the-fertiliser-sector/> [Accessed 25 June 2020].
  2. [image] Available at: <https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/urea-fertilizer-bags-14322681162.html> [Accessed 25 June 2020].
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