agricultural chemical threat

[princessme23]

what effect does the use of chemicals in the agricultural industry have on the environment?

[newtron]

You can start by googling 'eutrophication'.

[newtron]

Groundwater contamination by pesticides is common.

[EDLEE]

Envirenmentalists have one view and those in the agricultural chemical field have another. As in all things, the truth is somewhere between. How far to one side or the other of center is primarily a function of ones own personal leanings.( One person's "truth " is not always another's)

[lugus]

Insecticides enter the food chain through birds and small animals eating the poisoned insects, becoming more concentrated the further up the chain you go (sparrow eats a hundred aphids, sparrow hawk eats ten sparrows that have eaten a hundred aphids). Fertilizers are washed off feilds, into water courses fertilizing algal blooms that block out sunlight for other aquatic plants and starve the water of oxygen.
Having said that, I work in an agricultural laboratory and you wouldn't believe some of the worrying stuff we have to test organic crops for.

[noodlehead]

Also, the removal of creatures from a stable environment causes ripples. If you remove the insects, the birds starve, then the birds of prey die and so on. And then as new insects settle, the birds aren't there to eat them so they thrive and destroy crops.You get the picture...