Abstract
The industrialization of the agricultural sector has increased the chemical burden on natural ecosystems. Pesticides are agrochemicals used in agricultural lands, public health programs, and urban green areas in order to protect plants and humans from various diseases. However, due to their known ability to cause a large number of negative health and environmental effects, their side effects can be an important environmental health risk factor. The urgent need for a more sustainable and ecological approach has produced many innovative ideas, among them agriculture reforms and food production implementing sustainable practice evolving to food sovereignty. It is more obvious than ever that the society needs the implementation of a new agricultural concept regarding food production, which is safer for man and the environment, and to this end, steps such as the declaration of Nyéléni have been taken.
Highlights
Pesticides are substances or mixtures of substances that are mainly used in agriculture or in public health protection programs in order to protect plants from pests, weeds or diseases, and humans from vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue fever, and schistosomiasis
Pesticides residues have been detected in human breast milk samples, and there are concerns about prenatal exposure and health effects in children [13, 44,45,46]. This current review aims at highlighting the urgent need for a new concept in agriculture involving a drastic reduction in the use of chemical pesticides
Given the fact that the health effects have been extensively discussed in the current literature, this paper focuses on the major chronic health effects and recent findings regarding health effects that have been associated with exposure to common classes of chemical pesticides, i.e., organochlorines, organophosphates, carbamates, pyrethroids, triazines, and neonicotinoids
Summary
Pesticides are substances or mixtures of substances that are mainly used in agriculture or in public health protection programs in order to protect plants from pests, weeds or diseases, and humans from vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue fever, and schistosomiasis. Pesticides residues have been detected in human breast milk samples, and there are concerns about prenatal exposure and health effects in children [13, 44,45,46]. This current review aims at highlighting the urgent need for a new concept in agriculture involving a drastic reduction in the use of chemical pesticides. The important health effects, as discussed below, reveal the urgent need for implementing alternative solutions
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