Exponential and uncontrolled growth of population forced the industrial revolution to feed the massive population in the world,. No doubt the world has seen huge and unprecedented economic development but this uncontrolled expansion simultaneously depleted every sphere of environment including the hydrosphere, geosphere, and lithosphere. as well as the atmosphere, and generating huge amounts of waste from all segments.
When this wastes cross the assimilation capacity of the environment, it creates pollution. Hence poison is spread everywhere, as a result we are facing huge health and environmental consequences. The Pakistani economy is basically semi-industrialized with one of the well designed integrated agricultural sectors. Globally Pakistan is ranked the 23rd largest economy in terms of GDP with the world’s largest irrigation system, Eighty percent of its total 23.3 million hectares are cultivated and approximately 40 percent of the country’s labour force is associated with the agricultural sector, which contributed 18.5% of the country total GDP.
A large portion of the population is directly or indirectly associated with agriculture and their main source of living is totally dependent on this sector. The major crops that Pakistan produced are wheat, rice, sugarcane, cotton, mangoes, oranges and dates, other fruit and vegetables. Beside these major crops Pakistan possesses high potentialities to grow almost all types of sub-tropical, tropical, garden and field crops in abundance.
Exponential growth of population leads the country to feed more than 220 million people with a growth of 1.95% annually. As population increase, more stress develops on the land to produce more food to meet the demand of millions. The increasing demand can be met by development of new and better crop protection measures. For better crop yield and to protect crops from insects, unwanted herbs, and pets, the indiscriminate usage of synthetic pesticides has been carried out extensively since 1954 after the Locust outbreak. These poisons were used for the benefit of humans, so they were called economic poisons. In 2019, the crop protection poison market was valued at $220 million and with forecast to witness a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 8 percent, it is forecast to cross the value of $350 million by 2025.
Wheat contributes 37 percent of total food energy in Pakistan, hence it acts as a driver for the crop protection poison market. Tjhe flourishing of textile industry also increased pesticide consumption in Pakistan. About 90 percent of pesticides are used in cotton fields, even several compounds which are banned in the rest of the world, are still used in Pakistan. These poisons consists of various chemical compounds used as insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, nematicides, rodenticides as well as fungicides and growth regulators
Pesticides consist of various compounds for wide range and applications such as herbicides, nematicides, insecticides, molluscicides, fungicides, rodenticides and plant growth regulators. Pakistan used more than 85 percent insecticides, 6-7 percent herbicides and fungicides, whereas the world consume 56 percent herbicides in its total pesticides. Insecticides are classified into four main classes, organochlorine, organophosphorus, carbamates and pyrethroids. Among these classes, organochlorines which contained DDT, BHC and Dieldrin are considered as persistent pesticides because they are very stable, cannot be broken down and remain in the environment for a very long time. The organophosphorus group is less persistent. This group contains methyl parathion, endosulfan, malathion, diazinon, monocrotophos, dimethoate and chlorpyrifos. The third group is based on carbamic acid. One of the least persistent and latest developed group belongs to pyrethroids, deltamethrin, fenvalerte and cypermethrin, which are synthetic pyrethroids. Although herbicide usage in Pakistan is comparatively less than insecticides but it also poses a danger to the community. Diuron, paraquat, diquat, atrizine, phosalon, 2,4-T , 2,4-D and metametron are the major herbicides used in different parts of Pakistan, Besides these, aluminum phosphate, cacumin, zinc phosphate, bromadiolone, strychnine warfarin and brodifacoum are also used to control vertebrate animals.
Depending on exposure, the toxicity of pesticide can be acute or chronic. Acute toxicity can cause lethal or harmful effects on the first time of inhalation, injection or dermal contact, while its severity can vary by the type of group, contact time and exposure dosage. The symptoms can be observed shortly after exposure or within 48 hours. They can be cough, sore throat, respiratory tract infection, eyes and skin irritation, headache, extreme weakness, vomiting, nausea, seizures, loss of consciousness or death. Low doses of pesticide over time can also cause harmful effects on health and cause illnesses like asthma, Parkinsonism, hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and several types of cancers. Pesticides are normally endocrine disruptors, and imbalance hormones which leads to abnormal function of hormones and can cause reproductive and growth dysfunction in children and adults even at a very low concentration.
In adults the reduction of semen is commonly observed due to exposure of endocrine disruptors, hence genital dysfunction, prostate cancers, decreased fertility, ovarian cysts, early puberty, breast cancers, uterus anomalies, multiple complications during pregnancy, neurological disorders, obesity, diabetes, obesity hypothyroidism and thyroid cancers are some disorders observed. Sometime pesticides produced “Coktail effects”: an alteration or enhancement of chemical effects when exposed with very low level with one or more chemicals, combine effect which cannot be understood by physicians. Currently there is no regulations to focus on this issue.
