Dear Environmental Protection Agency
It has come to my knowledge that it is really common for small town farmers, and even some industrialized big business farmers to use pesticides for there produce/crops. I think the risk of these pesticides do not have a substantial reward in the final product. According to Pesticide Action Network UK, the short term effects of these pesticides being used involve respiratory tract infections, nausea, headaches, and extreme skin/eye irritation. Although these effects may seem only somewhat bad for some readers, the long term affects appear to be more detrimental for the human health. Some of these long term effect include Parkinson's disease, Anxiety, asthma, and some cancers such as Leukemia and non-hodgkin lymphoma. These severe effects prove that the use of these pesticides is widely irresponsible. I understand that the whole point of these pesticides is to prevent pest from damaging the produce and crops, but I think the effects of these pesticides is far more worse. Just because something may be harmful for pest, does not mean it will not be harmful for humans that want to consume the product. Personally I come from a small farm town surrounded by numerous amounts of farms that all use pesticides. This causes the air quality to be significantly bad and can lead to some of the health effects that I mentioned above. Im asking that you evaluate the risk/reward of these pesticides and if we can in anyway regulate them any further. Our air quality in most parts of the country is already severely bad and according to National Pesticide information center the sun can break down these pesticides, but not all the time. This causes the rest of the pesticides to dissipate in the air. but maybe harsher regulations could improve air quality and the health of people consuming these products. Some ways that I think we can be able to do this is more critical testing of what pesticides are specifically harmful to humans and air quality. I don't think we should just let certain pesticides go under the rug because they may only be harmful if exposed for long periods of time. I say this because if you are someone who lives near a farm where there is always constant pesticides in the air, then you are significantly vulnerable to the long term affects. Also if you are limited by your choices of produce in your local stores, then you can be facing the severe long term affects as well. I encourage you to act now before it is to late. I think positive change is very much obtainable in the pesticide issues that farmers and consumers face. With time, research, and exploring our options we can solve the problem.
-Timothy Costa
interesting
ReplyDelete