APES+Extra+Credit+Wildflowers

Stripes of wildflowers across farm fields could cut pesticide spraying The Guardian. 31 January 2018. (Accessed on 9 February 2018) Provided Link: [] Summary: In the article above a particular farm in England, after decades of farmers using pesticides to try and deal effectively with pests that can be found in a field, some cereal grain farms are starting to use strips of wild flowers in their fields to attract predatory insects like wasps and ground beetles and hoverflies to kill pests. Professor Richard Pywell helped to work on the use of the wildflowers to support those insects in that he realized and followed up on the amount of damage that is caused by pesticides per year. The article even mentioned how the pesticides definitely cause more harm than good on a whole face value there than on other occasions. In all the report also rounds off by mentioning the incoming global issue of how we will grow enough food safely for all the people that live here on Earth. This article helps to debunk this concept of absolutely having to have pesticides to effectively grow crops in a field without the use of any pesticides that cause harmful impacts. Relation to Class: In AP Environmental Science pesticides are all the rage because of how dangerous they are and the increasing questionability of how effective pesticides actually are in relation to the amount they are used and where they are used. This article focuses on how to move away from both synthetic and natural pesticides which is are used to kill pests. Pests are defined as any species that compete with us for food, invades lawns and gardens, destroys wood in houses, spreads disease, or is simply a nuisance (Miller 561). Pesticides are defined as chemicals to kill organisms that we consider undesirable (Miller 561). Also in relation to this article, the text references this concept of using natural predators of insects and pests as a means to control the way that they impact our society (Miller 572), overall there is this relation and concept that there are more options and much more effective options than just spreading chemicals over everything. Opinion: Personally I think that the use of flowers to help and provide homes for insects is something that could be beneficial and used all throughout the world if people want to. It seems that this is a very effective and ingenious way to utilize the Earth’s natural ability for pest control in a setting that needed it so badly. Also I have never heard of people complaining about the added beauty seen by the flowers in the field and if this was to get used more than just this one time it could be a concept that helps to make the entire Earth look better and more beautiful. This also to me represents that kind of critical thinking that everyone on Earth is going to need to be able to exhibit in the future as problems such as the ones about insects and other environmental issues appear and require things to fix them. In all I loved what this scientist did to solve this issue here and I think that it could be something that could be used all around the world. Environmental Law: An environmental law that was passed and is related to the topic of pesticides and fungicides etc was the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Control Act of 1972 which required that all commercial pesticides be approved by the EPA for general or restricted use. The EPA works with scientist about the nature and toxicity of pesticides on the foods and the way that it could affect the environment. Today this is an incredibly important law because the fact there has to be some approval process to pesticides keeps the public say and overall can be crucial to making sure that people do not get sick or hurt from problems with pesticides.

 This is an image of an example of the strips of wildflowers being used as places to cultivate and encourage the growth of insects that help to mitigate the growth and impact of pests in the field.

MLA Citation: Carrington, Damian. “Stripes of Wildflowers across Farm Fields Could Cut Pesticide Spraying.” <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">The Guardian, 31 Jan. 2018, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #1155cc; font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">[] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">.