Environmental Problems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Environmental Problems - Essay Example The main reason behind this problem is the lack of knowledge about pesticides and there never used to be any effective regulations or administrative measures. The peasants are unaware as to which pesticide is suitable for their crops or exactly how to use it. There are also some inappropriate practices of pesticides application that result in harmful residues on the crops. For example, when pests are not controlled by the pesticide at the recommended dosage, farmers arbitrarily increase the amount applied. Similar increased applications are made to counter rain after the dosage of pesticide. Cross-pollution of different Farmers' pesticide applications in adjacent fields also increase the actual amount of pesticide applied to an area. Often, the farmers also use pesticides shortly before harvesting the rice if the pest problems are very serious again leading to undesirable residue levels. (Adeel, 2003, p. 45) The inappropriate use of pesticides has led to a number of problems like air, soil and water pollution. In this context, governmental institutions and other organizations have done a lot of work at national, provincial, and municipal levels to solve these problems. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have also been established to facilitate collaboration between ministries, institutes, and industries. Specific legislation leading to regulations and rules has been enacted to establish standards for production, marketing, and use of pesticides. Similarly, many technical standards and practical methods were set up to stipulate the quality, evaluation, maximum residue limits, and detection of pesticides. This has been matched by an information system to disseminate technical information for new crop varieties, feedback of application conditions, and pollution data. (Adeel, 2003, p. 45) Following are two major root causes: Limited Development of Pesticide Industry The pesticide manufacturing industry in most of the East Asian countries were never well developed. China is an example of such Industry, yielding 60% of rice. The capabilities of production units and the types of pesticides produced are limited. Distribution of locally produced pesticides is also uneven. There are few factories, which are equipped to make chemical and biological pesticides. Low-efficiency pesticides, including some non-prohibited chloropesticides, are used on a large scale. Cost effectiveness might be one reason of using some low efficiency pesticides. This situation has resulted in increasing imports of unfamiliar pesticides that may have the potential for misuse, over dosage, and new environmental problems. Poor control and Lack of monitoring over imported Pesticides Imported pesticides are expensive and requires extensive care and well controlled process to be adopted, however the quality of foreign pesticides are also not always consistent and guaranteed to produce better results every time. On a national scale, pesticides are imported without a coordinated plan, which indirectly affects the plans for production, delivery, and use of domestic pesticides.