When was pesticide first used

To this day, locust swarms have similarly destroyed crops and been a contributory cause of famines and human migrations throughout history. Meanwhile, globalisation of trade and motorised transport of people has enabled unprecedented opportunities for agripests to rapidly spread and establish around the globe.

For example, fall armyworm, an invasive moth that can damage a wide variety of crops, has spread rapidly around the world including to Australia in the space of less than five years. It is an alarming rate of spread, greatly aided by globalisation. Weeds, while less catastrophic in their effects, have also been a major threat to productivity throughout the history of agriculture.

Prior to the adoption of modern approaches to weed control beginning in the 19 th century , one of the main tasks on farms was removing weeds from fields, generating a huge demand for human labour in rural areas. Another concern is the deliberate introduction of pests for nefarious purposes. The industry was devastated, with the desired outcome achieved: production in Brazil fell by 75 per cent.

Aphids are one of many agripests that cause hardship for farmers. Farmers have been looking for new ways to control agripests since the advent of agriculture. Many of the earliest pesticides were simply based on dried plant leaves. One product familiar to many gardeners, Pyrethrum, is based on a plant-derived organic compound sourced from flowering Chrysanthemum plants, which was used by the Persians as early as BC.

The 19 th century saw interest in the agripest control properties of inorganic chemicals, mostly containing arsenic, sulphur or copper. Originally used as a visual deterrent to stop children from stealing grapes in the s, French viticulturalists quickly realised that the mixture was highly effective in controlling grape powdery mildew. While valuable in some contexts e.

Kislev, E. Weiss and A. Hartmann, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 9 Primal Seeds, Origin of Agriculture. Economic Benefits of Pest Management; R.

Peshin, Encyclopedia of Pest Management, pages , Pub. Marcel Dekker, Food Chem. Secoy, J. ISBN , A Short History of Fungicides, V. Morton and T. Staub, APSnet, March Advanced Search. To Footprint Database. Home History of Pesticide Use. The Golden Age of Pesticides was helped along by the unintended consequences of federal farm policies.

In the 50s and 60s, controls were placed on the number of acres farmers could plant, not directly on the amounts of crops they could produce. So, the farmers took the worst land out of production and poured technology, including pesticides, into the remaining land to increase yields. Dan Stork left now works as a salesman for a pesticides company and has seen a lot of change since the Golden Age.

But he still believes in the value of properly used pesticides. Beulah Gocke right says it was hard in those early days to keep up with the pace of change in pesticides for her family's farming operation. The main classes consist of organochlorines, organophosphates, carbamates, and pyrethroids. Exposure to pesticides can cause acute short term or chronic long term effects on animals and humans, especially in the reproductive, endocrine, and central nervous systems.

Today, there are more than species of insects and mites that are resistant to some form of pesticides. As a result of the increasing resistance, countries have started to apply more products, combine pesticides, increase applications, or substitute with more toxic replacements.

There are three types of harmful effects caused by pesticides: acute effects, delayed effects, and allergic effects. Acute effects are injuries or illnesses that appear immediately after exposure.