Biodiversity Threatened by Pesticide Drift, Study Finds; Organic Agriculture Cited as a Holistic Solution
(Beyond Pesticides, January 3, 2025) Pesticides that are sprayed and become airborne significantly disrupt ecological balances and affect nontarget species that are crucial for maintaining biodiversity, according to an article in Environmental Pollution. In this review of studies throughout countries in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, among others, researchers from Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Poland reinforce the science about pesticides’ direct effect on species and the cascading effects of pesticide drift through various trophic levels within food webs that lead to overall devasting population effects.
This study “addresses the interconnectedness of these impacts and illustrates the complex threats that pesticide drift poses to biodiversity across multiple ecosystems,” the researchers state. They continue: “Impacts include reduced reproductive rates, changes in growth, development, and/or behavior, modification of diversity or community organization, disruption of food webs, and declines of important species. Pesticides disrupt the delicate balance between species that define a functioning ecosystem. Impacts can be local, transnational, or even continental.”
Pesticide drift threatens beneficial species and subsequently the entire agricultural system. The process of pesticide drift, “in which up to 25% of applied pesticides are carried by air currents, can transport chemicals over hundreds or even thousands of kilometers,” the authors state. Other research has found that less than .1% of pesticides applied to crops reach the target pest. Drift rates vary due to a series of factors including temperature, wind speed, humidity, and soil type.