Pros and cons of pesticides: can farms get along without them?
Are the chemical pesticides used by American farmers, at an
annual cost of $4 billion, unsafe at any level -- or vital to
feeding a hungry world? Given added visibility following
California's battle over pesticide spraying to eradicate the
Mediterranean fruit fly, some environmental groups are renewing
demands for sharply reducing or even ending pesticide use. They
hope public protests in California will lead Congress to tighten
pesticide restrictions. House hearings begin July 16 on federal
pesticide policies.Skip to next paragraph Subscribe Today to the
Monitor Yet if the United States stopped the use of pesticides,
crop production could drop 10 percent, according to Us
Department of Agriculture estimates, or 30 percent, according to
the National Agricultural Chemicals Association (NACA). Even a
10 percent cut in crop yields would be intolerable, say NACA
spokesmen, at a time when the world is growing increasingly
dependent on US food exports. F