Ecologists Figure Out How to Cultivate Fields to Reduce Harm of Pesticides

RUDN ecologists with colleagues from Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique (Algeria) and France compared several systems of land cultivation in terms of the harmful effects of pesticides on human health. The authors named which methods are the safest and which harm a person the most. The results are published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental safety.

Weeds and parasites on agricultural land are controlled with pesticides. They allow achieving a greater yield, but at the same time, they can be dangerous for the environment and human health. Long-term exposure to pesticides in humans leads to poisoning and chronic diseases. Therefore, scientists are developing new ways of cultivating the land that will reduce the negative impact of pesticides on health. RUDN ecologists with colleagues from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique (DGRSDT-ALGIERS: Project Prima S2 Biodiversity) and France compared several agricultural systems and named the most harmful and safest of them in terms of pesticide poisoning.

“Pesticides are used in agriculture around the world to improve the quality and quantity of crops. However, their widespread use can be harmful to the environment and humans. Toxic pesticide chemicals contaminate soil and groundwater. This destroys the biodiversity of plants and animals. In addition to environmental risks, pesticides can pose a health risk to farmers, workers, or local residents. Exposure to pesticides through spraying and accumulation in food causes short and long-term toxic effects,” said Mourad Latati, PhD, leading researcher at the Institute of Ecology at RUDN University.

Ecologists compared three traditional and six modern farming systems. To do this, the authors used data already collected to assess how harmful pesticides are to human health in the area of Setif, a city in northeastern Algeria. Farming systems differed in the intensity of plowing and the number of crops grown per field.

It turned out that pesticides pose a great danger to humans in those farms where the soil is rarely plowed. The same level of exposure to pesticides turned out to be lands where monocultures are grown - for example, only peas or only barley. Operators of agricultural machines suffer the most - they receive a dose of 56 mg per 1 kg of body weight every day. In second place in terms of impact are children from nearby settlements. They receive 0.66 mg per 1 kg of body per day. The most common route of infection was through the skin. The most harmless was the system in which barley and peas are grown at the same time. From the point of view of plowing, the approach that combines inter-row cultivation and standard cultivation turned out to be the best.

“The simultaneous cultivation of barley and peas turned out to be the most interesting system in terms of risk reduction. Both for machinists and for ordinary residents, and with any methods of tillage. In addition, the combination of inter-row cultivation and conventional tillage has proven to be the most sustainable, both in terms of yield and human health risks,” Rebouh Nazih, PhD, Associate Professor of the Department of Environmental Management at RUDN University.