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The Places in America that Use the Most (and Least) Pesticides
The Places in America that Use the Most (and Least) Pesticides
With the recent second verdict where a jury ruled that Roundup weedkiller contributed to a man’s cancer, controversial pesticides, herbicides and fungicides are once again in the news.
These chemicals, particularly the herbicide glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) have long played a role in American agriculture, but their health risks are only now being understood. As a result, thousands of cancer lawsuits have been filed against Monsanto, the company that invented Roundup, and Monsanto’s new parent company, Bayer AG.
Along with Priceonomics customer WeedKillerCrisis We decided to analyze data to uncover which states in the United States had the most and least exposure to pesticides, herbicides and other agricultural chemicals, with a particular focus on glyphosate, the active ingredient that is in the news right now. We looked at data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to see which compounds were most popular and which locations had the highest usage levels of these chemicals.
By a significant margin, the most popular herbicide in the United States is glyphosate, which is four times more popular than the second most popular chemical. Not surprisingly, large agricultural states like California, Washington, and Illinois use the most pesticides.
However, some states that use a lot of these chemicals see very little glyphosate usage, while others nearly exclusively use the compound. In California for example, only 6 percent of pesticide usage is glyphosate, while in Montana, 52 percent of such usage is from glyphosate.
Methodology
Before diving into the results, it’s worth spending a moment on the methodology and data source. We looked at data from the Pesticide National Synthesis Project published by the USGS, a division of the Department of the Interior that estimates pesticide, herbicide, and fungicide usage in agricultural operations throughout the 48 continental states.
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Pesticides Pollution
PESTICIDES POLLUTION
Pesticides are chemicals that are used to kill or control pests. This includes herbicides that are used for getting rid of weeds, insecticides used to treat fungicides, nematocides used to control nematodes as well as rodenticides used to treat vertebrate poisoning.
WHY PESTICIDES CAN BE HARMFUL
Pesticides contain ingredients such as oxygen, chlorine, sulfur, phosphorus, nitrogen, and bromine as well as heavy metals such as arsenic, copper sulfates, lead, and mercury. Pesticides, being toxic chemicals, can interfere with the environment and cause harms in several ways.
When applied on agricultural lands and domestic gardens, they run off these lands and come in contact with natural resources.
HOW DOES IT POLLUTE THE ENVIRONMENT?
This normally occurs when heavy wind or rain falls on the aforementioned lands, spreading the pesticides, being toxic chemicals, into unintended areas, coming in contact with natural resources such clean air, water, land, plants, and animals, thereby contaminating or harming them.
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER CONTAMINATION?
Once the aforementioned natural resources are contaminated or harmed by pesticides, they are deemed unsuitable and harmful to the environment as well as to people and communities.
WHAT ARE THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF PESTICIDES POLLUTION?
Some of the environmental impacts associated with the indiscriminate use of pesticides are listed and briefly explained below;
Biodiversity Destruction: The soil contains small naturally occurring organisms know as microbes. They break down organic materials in the soil and absorb water as well as nutrients in the process, and these are then used by plants to grow. As mentioned earlier, the indiscriminate use of pesticides can have unintended consequences, destroying microbes and affecting the growth of plants.
Also, pesticides often stay in the environment long after beening applied on agricultural lands and this means that they could be sent to water bodies by heavy wind or rainfall. Once in water bodies, they can kill aquatic animals such as fish and depopulate fishes.
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