Pesticides
Many chemical products with well defined functions come under the general heading of pesticides. Weedkillers, insecticides, fungicides, and so on.... Let’s have a quick look at whats around !
Pesticides (which are also called “phytosanitary products”) used in agriculture are products which come from the chemical industry and are active agents which can be either natural or synthetic. In agriculture they are used to get rid of pests which ravage crops. Several different types were or are commercialized in France. Organochlorides (which are banned in France), whose active agent is chloride, are among the most powerful of these. These products are dangerous as they contaminate the soil for a long period of time. They were replaced in France by organophosphorous pesticides (which are more toxic for insects but are quicker to biodegrade) or sythetic pyrethroïds, currently the most used in France.
When plants are damaged by types of mushrooms, fungicides are used as treatment. These produicts have gradually replaced the famous Bordeaux Mixture, a natural product made from copper sulphate and lime which is very effective against many diseases. Depending on the formulas, the synthetic active agents used today are based on carbamates, derivatives of benzene, derivatives of phenol, quinones, amines, amides, triazoles, etc.. Some of these products are considered to be potentially cancerous.
When plants are damaged by weeds, we use herbicides, more commonly known as weedkillers. Some get rid of the weeds only, while others don’t just stop there. Many different types of weedkillers are available in the shops, the most common being phenol nitrate, amides, benzonitriles, urea substitutes, triazines, sulphonurates, ammonium.... to mention just a few ! Some of these products may also be cancerous.
If the pests are neither insects, mushrooms nor weeds, we use products like molluscicides against slugs, rat poison against rodents, corvicides against crows...again, its hard to name them all !
All these products obviously make a lot of money for the chemical industry while at the same time destroying biodiversity !
Happily, things are slowly changing. As a consequence of the Grenelle for the Environment, the government has committed itself to reducing by half the amount of insecticides and herbicides used in France.
At the end of 2008 a first big step was made in this direction by banning the sales of some 1,500 pesticides, judged to be “damaging” to the environment and to health.
By 2010, the plan for the reduction in the use of pesticides in France includes banning or restricting the use of 53 molecules considered to be dangerous.