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Pesticides are chemical compounds used to control plants and animals classified as pests. The term pesticide
includes insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other materials designed to kill or control "pests." During the past fifty years, agricultural production in many areas of the world has
increased dramatically, partly because of the use of herbicides and insecticides. Pesticides have also led to health benefits, such as eradication of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Despite
benefits for crop production and control of disease-carrying pests, pesticide use is of concern because pesticides can reach humans through the food chain, through drinking water, or by
direct contact and cause harm. Pesticides can also build up in and have harmful effects to fish and other aquatic life, to birds and animals, and they can also destroy beneficial plants and
insects.*
Pesticide issues, their problems and alternatives are here divided into 5 categories:
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