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Introduction:

<div style="text-align: justify;">The world urgently needs to find ways to reduce the vast volumes of poisons that are poured out over agricultural crops and fields in an attempt to reduce losses to pests and diseases. The volumes amount to several millions of tons annually. The World Health Organization, WHO, estimates that between one and five millions of adults are poisoned by pesticides every year, of which 20,000 die. The numbers of children affected is large, since millions of children work in agricultural fields where the poisons are use, but the number is not known.<br />
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Besides the direct health problems to humans, there is another huge problem - how these toxic substances affect all the other life forms, each of them individually, but probably much more seriously and much more difficult to investigate, how these substances work together to affect lives of animals and plants.<br />
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One example of this is the problem of bee hives collapsing in the USA. During the last 6-7 years beekeepers have experienced big losses due to so-called colony collapse disorder, where the bees leave their hives and do not return and do not establish themselves again in a new hive. Beekeepers have lost up to 90 % of their hives to this.<br />
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Scientists have not yet been able to point to a single factor causing the problem, and this is probably because there are more factors playing together. The manufacturers of pesticides are not forced to make experiments where they test their products together with all the other poisons out there and then see what happens over a longer period of time.<br />
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To satisfy the demands of the environmental authorities they just need to prove that their product does not kill insects like bees in the short term, and that is all.<br />
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But nature is not like that. All the poisons work together to affect the immune system, the ability to find home to the beehive, the ability to communicate, etc.<br />
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And this is probably what is happening. A mixture of all the poisons affect the bees, and it can be shown how minute quantities of pesticides accumulate and influence the degree to which the bees can fight off fungal infections. It can also be shown how the hives of pesticide affected bees take on less weight, and maybe because of the reduced amount of food, produce fewer queens. Researchers have also been able to tag bees with microchips and have found that the pesticide affected ones are two or three times more likely to get "lost", meaning they cannot find back to their hive.<br />
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France has long ago taken the consequences and prohibited some of these systemic pesticides, which the industry and industrial farmers are so keen to promote, because they have a long-term impact. And since France did this, they have not had any serious problem with colony collapses.<br />
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Big industry is, however, much stronger in the USA and they pay for so many lobbyists to influence the politicians, that it is not likely that such a sensible decision will be taken any time soon.</div>

Directive:

<ol>
	<li>Read the files about pests, pest management and how to make the farm less attractive to pests.</li>
	<li>Describe what the main agricultural pests are in your area (ask some farmers if you do not know), and find out if there are farmers in your area who already use any of the methods given in the files on how to reduce numbers of pest with natural methods.</li>
	<li>Write a paper of at least one page where you explain 1) the advantages of biodiversity, 2) how the local farmers could improve biodiversity and 3) write your findings regarding local problem pests and how/whether improving biodiversity will reduce this problem.</li>
	<li>Send the paper to your tutor.</li>
</ol>
Files:<br />
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F1. <u>Non-chemical crop protection</u>, by Piet Scheepens and Rik Hoevers, from Agrodok 30, Agromisa Foundation and CTA, Wageningen, 2007, p. 12-32.<br />
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F2. <u>Biopesticides</u>, by Christian Fenger, from The GAIA-Movement, 40 Green World Actions, Geneva, 2007, p. 89-92.<br />
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