APES
Chapter 10: Farming: Conventional and Sus Practices
Name_____________________________________
Date___________ Score _____________
Protecting Food Resources: Using Conventional Chemical Pesticides to Control Pests (Miller, 10th edition)
Objective for this reading: To provide an overview on pest control for agricultural and non-agricultural areas.
Please read the attached reading and answer the questions on another sheet of paper.
What is a Pest?
1. Define pest:
2. Most pests are r-selected—what does this mean?
3. Insects represent 75% of the world’s known species. Insects play an important ecological role in our lives such as
being pollinators.
4. When we change agriculture from polyculture (raising multiple types of crops) to a monoculture (raising exclusively
one crop) and spray fields with huge amounts of pesticides, what are the consequences?
What are Pesticides?
5. Define pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, nematocides and rodenticides.
6. As human populations grew and agriculture spread, people began looking at ways to protect their crops. Create a
time line from 500 BC to 1939 showing the evolution of the use of the types of pesticides.
How are pesticides used today? Some statistics…
7a. Worldwide, how much pesticide are we currently using?
b. What percentage is used in households?
c. State the types of uses of pesticides are used in households.
8. Explain what is a broad spectrum agent?
9. Define pesticide persistence.
10. Who is Rachel Carson and what was her concern?
What is the Case for Pesticides?
11. State the seven benefits of pesticides.
12. What are the criteria for the “ideal pest-killing” chemical?
What is the Case Against Pesticides?
13. Explain the major problem associated with the wide-spread use of pesticides.
14. What is the concern with broad spectrum insecticides on the environment?
15. Discuss what is meant by “pesticides don’t stay put”.
16. How do pesticides harm wildlife?
17. According to WHO and UN Environment Programme (UNEP) state that some pesticides can threaten human health.
Explain their findings.
Case Study: How Successful Have Pesticides Been in Reducing Crop Losses in the US?
18. Write an overview of this section.
How are Pesticides Regulated in the US?
19. Who and what is FIFRA?
20. What is the tolerance level established by the EPA?
Over
How Well is the Public Protected from Exposure to Pesticides in the U.S.?
21. List and describe the facts making up the good news.
22. List and describe the facts making up the bad news.
Section 16-9 Protecting Food Resources: Alternatives to Conventional Chemical Pesticides
1. Explain the use of these biological, ecological or other methods to reduce pest infestations:
a. Cultivation practices
b. Genetic Engineering
c. biological pest control
2.
3.
4.
5.
State the disadvantages of using biological pest control.
What are “sex attractants” and pheromones? How do they work? Advantages? Disadvantages?
Describe the method of using “hormones that disrupt an insect’s normal life cycle”.
Describe other methods: using hot water, gamma radiation? Pros and cons.
Is Integrated Pest Management the Answer?
6. Define IPM and its overall aim.
7. What are advantages and disadvantages of IPM.