Enter Task

Faculty:

Study area:

Subject:

Section:

Type:

Curriculum:

Sequence:

Title:

Wording:

Time:

hours

Introduction:

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. 
 
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. 
 
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. 
 
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. 
 
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. 
 
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. 
 
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. 
&nbsp; 
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. 
 
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.

Directive:

Preview:

Files:

Requirement:

No.

Title

Type

Edit

Delete

Examination:

Language:

Search words:

Status:

Vouching: