Its funny that organics were pushed out by chemical manufacturers. We’re headed back that way, but not fast enough.
U.S. agriculture has developed a heavy reliance on chemicals to safeguard crops from yield-robbing weeds. However, many of those herbicides can pose substantial health risks to people, pets, and wildlife, which is why laws prescribe how some of these chemicals are handled in fields. A study now finds that trace quantities of such agricultural chemicals nonetheless find their way into consumers’ homes—not on the fruits and vegetables they buy but probably by hitchhiking on dust.
The findings are disturbing for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the link between pesticide exposure and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a malignancy whose incidence has exploded during recent years. Indeed, the new study was as an offshoot of a larger non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma study financed by the National Cancer Institute.
What the research shows is that home exposure to agricultural weed killers increases as the acreage of nearby croplands increases.
Read the whole story…
July 28th, 2006 at 7:36 am
Having worked in the bedding plant industry I can say from first hand experience that not all Agra business follow the laws for pesticide application, exposure and disposal. This only goes to compound the problem of migrating chemicals by saturating the area of application.