Research on World Agricultural Economy

Articulating the Effect of Pesticides Use and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): The Science of Improving Lives through Decision Impacts

Morufu Olalekan Raimi

1Department of Environmental Health Science, Kwara State University, Malete, Kwara State, Nigeria 2 Department of Community Medicine, Environmental Health Unit, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, Nigeria

Tonye Vivien Odubo

Department of Geography and Environmental Management, Niger Delta University, Nigeria

Ogah Alima

School of Health and Life Sciences, Teesside University, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom

Henry Akpojubaro Efegbere

Department of Community Medicine, Edo University, Iyamho, Edo State, Nigeria

Abinotami Williams Ebuete

Department of Geography and Environmental Management, Niger Delta University, Nigeria

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36956/rwae.v2i1.347

Received: 8 April 2021; Published: 30 March 2021

Abstract

Nothing vast comes into a mortal’s life without a curse. Identifying the pathways of pesticide impact can be multifaceted as well as complex, as humankind faces the magnificent challenge of food systems reconfiguration toward providing and delivering healthy foods that individuals can access while protecting planetary health. Ideally, chemical pesticides used inappropriately in agricultural activities has shaped serious health as well as environmental problems in the global south. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) as well as World Health Organization (WHO) approximate that the rates of pesticide poisoning occur 2-3 times per minute, having roughly 20,000 employees dying yearly from exposure, mostly in emerging countries. From an environmental point of view, “chemically-polluted runoff” comes through fields that pollute both ground as well as surface waters, destroying freshwater ecosystems, damaged fisheries, as well as creating growing and sustainable "dead zones" in the coastal areas near the river’s mouths of the drain agricultural areas. The environmental as well as health hazards resulting from pesticides could remain comparatively avoided through education as the first step towards achieving the SDGs as well as creating sustainable incentives toward curbing the overuse trend.  Other important challenges need to be resolved, for example social inclusion; poverty reduction; education, increased equity as well as health care; sustainable energy; conservation of biodiversity; water security; and changing climate adaptation as well as mitigation. These challenges are interlinked as well as embodied in 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which all UN member states have accepted since 2015 as well as built round the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, managing the rapid accelerators considerately will need negotiation as well as collaboration from a wide range of civil society sector, private as well as public actors. The time has come toward putting the challenge of sociotechnical innovation as well as massive human ingenuity toward usage to safeguard the next generations as well as the planet future. While, the world is not on the pathway toward realizing its global goals come 2030. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, uneven progress had been witnessed, as well as more focused considerations was required in many areas. The sudden onset of the pandemic abruptly hampered the SDGs implementation and, in other cases, twisted decades of progress backwards.

Keywords: Human ingenuity, Decision impacts, Sustainable Development Goals, Planetary health, Pesticides, Dialogue and cooperation, Outreach programs, Nigeria

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