Example "Earth Positive Talking Points" Assignment

by

Ken Pitts

The following is written to be example of what I want from my students on the EPTP's assignment. I suggest that you: 1) Do not copy and paste from articles to prevent plagiarizing. If you do quote the author(s), please use quotation marks. Less than 20% of your talking points material should be quoted. 2) Try to find sources that have authors that are published in scientific journals. I found it helpful to "Google" my topic to find general sources that then have documentation within them that often included journals. I was not able to find any good journal references by going to the journals directly on Hiwire or Infotrac. For instance, Wikipedia is a terrible source to use, but you will find many of its statements have referenced material that will take you to journals. Half my literature cited entries were found by looking up my topics on Wikipedia first. 3) Look to see how I have documented my sources in the "Literature Cited" and parenthetical references. 4) Be flexible in the direction you take with this assignment. You may find great sources that may lead you in a different direction than what you intended to go. I would have preferred to find sources for my 4th talking point that gave "how big a difference would be made" by an individual going toward using vermicompost. What I found were national statistics for how much use of pesticides costs our society. I went with it.

Overall Message: Use vermicompost for garden fertilizer and you will increase the health of the plants and decrease the need for pesticides and their negative impacts on society.

Talking Point 1: (DEFINING THE PROBLEM) Use of fungicides and pesticides for fruits and vegetables can increase the chances of human disease.

Support: California's Central Valley has used the pesticides "Maneb" and "Paraquat" to productively grow abundant crops. Recent work by Costello (2009) indicates the use of these pesticides has increased the occurrence of Parkinson's disease in local residents exposed to it. The overall increase was calculated to be 75% higher in the Central Valley human populations living within 500 meters of sprayed fields. People who were exposed during their childhood or teen years had their risk increased four to six times that of individuals not exposed (Costello et. al., 2009).

Support: Domestic use of pesticides can lead to higher occurrences of chronic respiratory disease such as asthma. A study done on Lebanese school children found that pesticide use in their homes increased the occurrence of chronic asthma 2.47 times that of children coming from homes not using pesticides (Kannan et.al., 2003).

Talking Point 2: (DEFINING THE PROBLEM) Overuse of pesticides is a detriment to the health of the environment.

Support: Over 98% of sprayed insecticides and 95% of herbicides reach a destination other than their target species, including nontarget species, air, water, bottom sediments, and food (Miller 2004).

Support: Using pesticides decreases the biodiversity found in soil. This results in a less healthy soil ecosystem resulting in a poorer quality soil. Poor quality soils demand greater use of pesticides and fertilizers to yield vegetable plants that produce fruit (Johnston, 1986).

Support: Using insecticides reduces the formation of nitrogen fixing bacterial colonies in the soil. They interfere with the "symbiotic chemical signaling" used in communication between the plants and the bacterial nodules. This dramatically reduces the yield of the plant due to lack of nitrogen availability (Rockets, 2007).

Talking Point 3: (WHAT CAN I / YOU DO?) Using vermicompost is good for plant health and soil ecology.

Support: A study done by Kannan (2005) compared soil bacterial and fungi population sizes with the application of different types of fertilizers. Soil populations of beneficial bacteria and fungi were found to be the highest when vermicompost was used. Vermicompost soils bacterial counts showed 393 CFU (colony forming units) per gram compared to soils treated with inorganic fertilizers showing only 68 CFU per gram, a 5.8 fold increase. Fungal CFU counts increased from 26 CFU per gram in inorganic treated soils to 71 CFU per gram in soils treated with vermicompost, a 2.7 fold increase. This was attributed to the higher amounts of growth promoting substances found in vermicompost, including vitamins and enzymes not found in inorganic fertilizers. An increase in beneficial microbes "paved way for better crop yield and quality" (Kannan et. al., 2005).

Support: Vermicompost "not only dramatically increases plant growth and yield, but also suppresses diseases, parasitic nematodes, and arthropod (insect) pests. Vermicompost maintains high levels of microbial activity, which produces such valuable plant compounds as growth hormones, plant growth regulators, and soluble nutrients." Humic acid, made only by earthworms, allows slow release of plant growth regulators, soluble nutrients, and plant hormones. These substances normally breakdown at a much faster rate without humic acid. Vermicompost increases plant growth and the resulting yields by up to 50 percent. Healthy plants and healthy soil ecology reduce damage by pests such as spider mites, aphids, and parasitic nematodes. This reduces the need for pesticides (Kish, 2009).

Talking Point 4: (HOW BIG A DIFFERENCE WILL IT MAKE?) Using vermicompost will reduce the use of pesticides and their indirect costs imposed on our society.

Support: The United States uses approximately 500,000 tons of pesticides per year at a cost of $4.1 billion ($6,133,741,869 in 2009) to harvest $16 billion ($23,936,553,633) in crops. A staggering $8 billion ($11,968,276,816) of indirect annual costs impact our population with $787 million ($1,177,379,231) in health costs, $30 million ($44,881,038) in loss of pets and livestock, $520 million ($777,937,993) in loss of beneficial predators, $1.4 billion ($2,094,448,442) in pesticide resistance costs, $320 million ($478,731,072.66) in honeybee and pollinator losses, $942 million ($1,409,264,595) in adverse effects on the crops sprayed, $1.8 billion ($2,692,862,283) in monitoring and cleaning polluted groundwater, $24 million ($35,904,830) in fisheries losses, $2.1 billion ($3,141,672,664) in game bird poisoning loss, and $200 million ($299,206,920) in "government regulation to prevent damage" (Evans, 1993). Since 1993 there has been a 49.6% inflation rate that inflicts a whopping $12 billion in societal costs of pesticides (Anonymous, 2009). Evans (2009) considered his estimates to be conservative. Movement away from this counterproductive practice will be beneficial not only to the soil, plants, and ecosystem, but also to human society. Vermicompost use will reduce the need for pesticides.

Literature Cited:

Anonymous. 2009. US Inflation Calculator. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/.

Costello, Sadie , Myles Cockburn, Jeff Bronstein, Xinbo Zhang and Beate Ritz. 2009. "Parkinson's Disease and Residential Exposure to Maneb and Paraquat From Agricultural Applications in the Central Valley of California," American Journal of Epidemiology. http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/8/919.

Evans, Edward W. 1993. "What are the Indirect Costs of Pesticide Use?" Utah State University Cooperative Extension. http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/factsheet/costs-pesticides93.pdf.

Johnston, A.E. (1986). "Soil organic-matter, effects on soils and crops". Soil Use Management 2: 97–105. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119496779/abstract.

Kannan, P., A. Saravanan, S. Krishnakumar and S.K. Natarajan. 2005. Biological Properties of Soil as Influenced by Different Organic Manures, Research Journal of Agriculture and Biological Sciences 1(2): 181-183. http://www.insipub.com/rjabs/181-183.pdf

Kish, Stacy. 2009. "Earthworm Tea Good for Plants," USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture: Newsroom. http://www.csrees.usda.gov/newsroom/impact/2009/sbir/08101_earthworm_tea.html

Miller, G.T. 2004. Sustaining the Earth, 6th edition. Thompson Learning, Inc. Pacific Grove, California. Chapter 9, Pages 211-216.

Rockets, Rusty. 2007. Down On The Farm? Yields, Nutrients And Soil Quality. Scienceagogo.com. http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/farming.shtml

Salameh, P.R., I. Baldi, P. Brochard, C. Raherison, B. Abi Saleh and R. Salamon. 2003. "Respiratory symptoms in children and exposure to pesticides," European Respiratory Journal. 22:507-512. http://erj.ersjournals.com/cgi/reprint/22/3/507?maxtoshow=&HITS=&hits=&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=domestic+pesticide+ use&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT.