Original title: Chemical Pesticides and Human Health: The Urgent Need for a New Concept in Agriculture
Pesticides help protect plants and people from disease, and they are used on farms, in public health programs, and in urban green spaces. But they can also harm health and the environment. The paper calls for a safer way to produce food through sustainable agriculture and food sovereigntyThe idea that people and communities should have a say in how food is produced., which means communities having a say in how food is produced.
Imagine cleaning a garden with a spray that keeps pests away. The spray may protect the plants, but it can also affect the surrounding soil and the people nearby. In this paper, the spray stands for pesticides, and the garden stands for food production; the proposed shift is toward growing food in ways that are safer for people and the environment.
Farmers, communities, and ecosystems can all be affected by the chemical burden of pesticide use. The abstract argues for safer food production that protects people and the environment, while supporting sustainable practices and food sovereignty.
The abstract presents a broad case for safer, more sustainable agriculture, but it gives no specific measurements of health or environmental effects, comparison of farming methods, or evidence about how well the proposed changes work.
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Chemical Pesticides and Human Health: The Urgent Need for a New Concept in Agriculture — P. Nicolopoulou‐Stamati, Sotirios Maipas, Chrysanthi Kotampasi et al. — Frontiers in Public Health — doi:10.3389/fpubh.2016.00148
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.