Taking food to men in the fields brings women to freshly sprayed fields, and can prove extremely dangerous. Jobs like taking animals to the fields, cutting fodder for animals, taking care of vegetable plots, collecting material for fuel, bathing animals in the water courses, are all activities where women could be affected by the poisons in addition to direct involvement in agriculture or related activities that expose them to the hazards of pesticides.

On the other hand small children are also effecting with pesticides through many ways:

" Used to go with their parents in the pesticides affected fields and get affected with the poison.
" By playing with empty pesticides bottles,
" Drinking water in pesticides empty bottles.
" Taking grass from the effected fields for their animals.
" Small babies get affected by mother feeding while working or picking cotton in effected fields or after coming back to home and feed their babies.
" While playing near the pesticides effected fields in the direction of wind.
" While helping their parents in mixing of pesticides.
" Most of the children do pesticides spray in their own fields without any care.

Besides, all the above mentioned problems of the women and children, we cannot forget the other burning issues of the women and children of remote areas of the district, like low literacy rate, lack of awareness and motivation towards availing the basic health facilities provided by the health department, lack of confidence, no decision power, lack of motivation towards the primary education etc.

A. The crop plants and animals that form the main components of modern agro ecosystems had their origin in the natural ecosystems from which humans originally gathered food and fiber. Humans, flowering plants and herbivorous insects coexisted peacefully until about 10,000 years ago. Then the human perspective on the plant eating habits of insects changed once and for all. Concurrently on at least four continents, humans hit upon the idea that growing plants was a far more reliable way to obtain food than gathering plants.
Thus, agriculture was invented.

B. This constitutes the first Agricultural Revolution. The first plants to be domesticated were the cereals, corn in the Americas, rice in Southeast Asia, wheat and barley in Near East and sorghum in Africa.

C. May be started when a hunter-gatherer tossed a handful of seed or grain from a plant into a garbage pile. In the high nutrient environment the seed germinated and some genius saw the answer to the problem of finding enough food to eat.

D. For the first time in human existence, people could generate a surplus of food-more than they could eat in a short period of time. Surplus could be stored in anticipation of hard times ahead. This allowed people to abandon nomadic lifestyle and to settle in one place in larger numbers. Surpluses of grain also meant that domestic animals could be maintained year round and a regular source of meat and dairy products improved people's diets.

E. Breeding of plants, either deliberate or accidental, led to establishment of traits that were desirable from both a farmer's and an insect's point of view.
1. Dispersal bred out, so seeds stayed on stem instead of falling and scattering.
2. Growth and development synchronized so harvesting could be done in short period.
3. Edible seeds got larger and more numerous on each stem.

. In addition, the habits of agriculture were favorable to an insect.
1. Crop plants were irrigated and fertilized, so from the insects perspective water and nitrogen limitations on the nutritional suitability of plants were reduced.
2. Crop plants were raised as monocultures, so there were large amounts of single host plants available.
3. Because of E and F, Insect populations could increase to levels without precedent in the natural world.

G. Second Agricultural Revolution did nothing to reduce the problem. With the beginning of the Renaissance, world exploration introduced peoples of all countries to new and different crop plants.
Plants were exchanged and established in far distant
Places. As cultures acquired new foods, a number of insects associated with these Crops were transported along with them.
A good example is the cabbage white butterfly, first introduced into N. A. from Europe about 1860. A ubiquitous pest of cabbage, broccoli family. Many times crops were introduced without some of their pest insects but pests were introduced much later. The Hessian fly, a serious pest of wheat was brought in straw used as animal bedding by troops in the Revolutionary war. The cereal leaf beetle, another pest of wheat was brought in around 1958.
A. Today, hundreds of plant species are producing products of economic importance in virtually every nation and as a consequence, herbivory by insects has far greater economic importance than ever before. As a percentage of insect species, the number of pest species is actually low. In North America, it has been estimated that 150-200 insect species frequently cause serious damage and 6000 or so are sometimes pests but rarely cause severe damage. These numbers are a small fraction of the nearly 90,000 species of insects in North America north of Mexico. A similar proportion prevails worldwide. However small the proportion, the economic consequences are severe. $6.5 billion in losses in US in 1988. Estimates of the pest problem on a world scale suggest that without insect pests, world food production could be increased by about a third.

II. What is a pest?

A. Biologically speaking, there is nothing that defines a pest. Two similar insects may have almost identical biological patterns and even be in the same family, yet one will be considered a pest and the other not, because one attacks humans or something valued by humans. Example: the Colorado potato beetle defoliates the potato and the dock beetle defoliates dock with equal regularity. That the former is a pest and the latter not reflects the value we place on potato and our disinterest in dock. With this subjective view of an organisms place in nature in mind, the definition of a pest is any organism that annoys humans.
B. Pest status can change.

C. Pest problems are population problems

1. Some pest problems are natural in origin. Large numbers of mosquitoes and biting flies emerge at the same time in areas where climate synchronizes their development.

2. Humans also do things that end up making pests-"non-natural" origin.

III. How to make a pest insect

A. To understand how an insect becomes a pest, it is important to understand a little about how insect populations are regulated in natural ecosystems

B. A population is a group of individuals of the same insect species living in the same place at the same time. Communities are groups of populations (all living things) in an area. An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plant, animal, bacterial, fungal, protozoa) and the physical/chemical environment around them.
C. Let's theorize about the growth of an insect population.
1. There are many factors that exert natural control on population sizes.
a. First, note that for any given species, populations change in size over time.Primary factors affecting population numbers are:
1). births and immigration which increase the size of a population
2). and deaths and emigration which decrease its size.
b. The resulting average population size varies widely with species and with locality.
Insect species have a characteristic abundance. This refers to the approximate upper and lower limits of densities at which insects typically occur and values may vary by two or three orders of magnitude (100-1000). Some species, like mound-building termites live in populations containing millions of individuals, but others, like some populations of butterflies may have only a few dozen individuals. There are several aspects of reproduction that determine how fast populations can increase in size and how large populations can grow.
2. How many offspring that can be produced each time an insect reproduces.
a. Female German cockroach can put 30-48 eggs into each egg capsule she produces. The population down the street may produce 30 while the ones in the apartment next door may produce 48.
b. Termite queens may produce several hundred eggs/day.
c. Tsetse fly may produce 1 live young every 2-3 weeks.
3. How many times an insect can reproduce over its lifespan. German cockroaches produce an average of 5 ootheca but more prolific individuals may produce twice that number.
4. The age at sexual maturity or generation time can have a big impact on the rate at which a population grows. Generation time is the time it takes to go from egg to egg. Mice reproduce at 18 days, dogs and cats at 7 months and humans at 14 years. Think how many litters a cat can have by the time a person figures out what's going on.
a. By the way, the record is 420 kittens by Dusty of Texas between 1935 and 1952. The record of humans is 69 (16 twins, 7 triplets, 4 quadruplets).
b. Some fly species have generation times of less than a week.
5. Entomologists love these sorts of calculations. Estimates on the number of offspring a pair of houseflies can produce in a year led to one controversy. L.O. Howard calculated that if the fly began producing eggs in January, by September 15, there would be 5,598,720,000,000 flies, enough to cover the earth to a depth of 47 feet. In 1964, these figures were challenged by Harold Oldroyd who recalculated that a layer of such thickness would cover only an area the size of Germany, but "that is still a lot of flies".

C. Since we are not ankle-deep in house flies, something in nature must keep populations in check. That something is the environment. Any given environment only has enough resources to support a limited number of individuals of one species indefinitely. This number is the carrying capacity of the environment, representing the upper limit to the population.

D. Two kinds of environmental factors limit population growth.
1. Density dependent factors
2. Density independent factors

E. Density-dependent factors become more severe as populations increase in size. Density-dependent factors are usually biological in origin and include things like competition for food and shelter, predation and parasitism, and disease. 1. Competition for food and shelter. Plant feeding insects compete for foliage or fruit to eat and for places to lay their eggs. The greater the number of competitors, the more intense the competition. This type of interaction can be at the intraspecific level but if the needs of two different species overlap (e.g. food is same), then interspecific competition will ensue. If two species are competing for the same food, then usually competitive exclusion will occur, where one species will win out over the other
2. Some parasitoids and predators move into areas when prey become more abundant, often attracted by chemicals produced by the prey. Some predators increase rate of killing of particular prey species as prey increase. May result from increased efficiency of predation from learning or greater ease of encountering closely aggregated prey.
3. The more crowded individuals are, the greater the chances for a sick individual to come into contact with and infect others. Insects suffer from diseases caused by protozoa, bacteria, viruses, fungi and nematode worms. Interest in pathogenic microbes associated with insects has largely been focused on their potential for use in biological control.

F. The second group of factors acts independently of the size of the populations and these are called density independent factors. Density independent factors are usually abiotic (the physical and chemical features of the environment).
1. Temperature is very important in determining the range and population size of insects.
a. Insects are poikilothermic-cold-blooded so body temperature is usually same as ambient temperature. For every insect species, there is a defined range of temperatures within which it is able to survive. The range of tolerance varies from species to species, within a species and with the physiological state of the individual. Many insects can survive much lower temperatures in the fall and winter. The range lies between 0 and 50 C with an optimal range for most species of 22 to 38 C. (There are some crickets that survive much greater temperatures, some firebrats as well. A clip in Alien Empire).
b. Temperature affects how quickly eggs develop and the rate of larval and pupal development. It thus affects how many generations per year can be produced. Number of generations often varies between the northern and southern regions of an insect's range. Temperature is critical in monitoring what will happen for many field crop pests.
2. Moisture.
a. Water content of insects varies from 50-90% of total body weight. Soft bodied insects like caterpillars have large amounts of waters. There is an optimal moisture range in which a given species thrives. Low environmental moisture (rainfall, humidity, available surface water) can cause mortality due to desiccation. Very wet conditions can favor the spread of viral, fungal and bacterial diseases and sometimes can cause drowning. Insects are often very small and a drop of water in a raindrop can represent a serious problem for them (e.g. dodging them in flight and getting stuck in surface tension of a drop).
b. High humidity will affect feeding and reproductive behavior of many insects. For example, when humidity is above 88%, the tsetse fly does not feed on vertebrate hosts.

G. Stability of natural ecosystems.
1. Species that display population oscillations of great amplitude are referred to as unstable. Communities in which the populations of some species oscillate widely are likewise called unstable. Community stability may be related to diversity and instability to lack of diversity. For example, in natural systems, population outbreaks occur much more frequently in simple ecosystems like the boreal forests, where there are relatively few species of trees.
IV. So, given all of these mechanisms that kill insects or limit their reproductive success,
how and why do insects become pests?

A. We as humans create insect pests by:
1. Manipulation of the environment
2. Inadvertent transport of insect across geographical barriers
3. Through use of insecticides
4. Economic expectations of a given crop

B. Manipulation of the environment
1. Introduction of new host plants or large monocultures of plants. Quite often insects that feed on foliage of native plants switch over to related introduced crop plants and respond to the increased food supply with a large increase in population. Competition for food and shelter is reduced.
2. Prime example is the Colorado potato beetle as a major pest Leptinotarsa decimlineata lived in the Rocky mountains north of Mexico and fed on wild buffalo bur, a member of the Solanaceae plant family. Prior to 1865, Native Americans living in same area did not consider this insect a pest. When Europeans moved in and began growing cultivated potatoes, the insects moved from the wild plants to cultivated plants. Partly due to removal of wild plants and partly to the fact that human cultivars were far more plentiful. Once in the cultivated crops, it immediately became a pest. Today, it remains a major pest of potatoes in the U.S. and also attacks a variety of related solanaceous plants including tobacco, peppers, and eggplant. Also was transported to Europe and moved quite quickly.
3. The alfalfa butterfly, a California native that fed on scattered wild legumes, was once quite rare, but the widespread cultivation of alfalfa throughout the state has made it a common sight and a pest.
4. Monocultures. Planting vast areas with certain plants-like fields of corn, soybeans etc.. Monocultures usually support a simpler community of predators and parasites than would be found in natural plant community. The pest populations are highly unstable, like those seen in simple natural ecosystems. Cultivation of a single species of plant increases the ease with which herbivores that feed upon it can locate food and competition is reduced.

C. Transport across a natural barrier
1. Often there is something about a new environment that allows a species to increase in numbers much more rapidly once it has become established there than it did in its place of origin. Frequently, the imported species are not pests in their place of origin because of various environmental constrains and natural enemies.
2. Example: Importation of acacia tree from Australia because it is a fine ornamental plant used extensively in dry conditions of California summers. Brought in during Civil War and along with it a tiny scale insect. Either the scale was unseen or not thought to be important. Scale is called cottony cushion scale and is not a serious pest in Australia.
a. Scale insects are strange. They have sucking mouthparts and are true bugs Order Hemiptera) that are sap-suckers. They build a shell over themselves which is basically their cuticle and then glue themselves down to prevent predation.
b. When an insect is transported to a new area, it is likely that no parasites or predators are present that specialize on and can keep the insect in check. Often, populations swing upwards. If the insect has a taste for a human crop, then problems begin. For the cottony cushion scale, that crop is citrus fruit. Within 20 years of import, 95% of the citrus industry in California was eliminated due to scale damage.
c. By 1888, the industry had just about vanished, when several natural predators were imported from Australia to attempt biological control. The Vedalia beetle, similar in appearance to out Ladybugs, reduced the scale sufficiently to allow citrus to be a major crop by the turn of the century.
3. Example: the European Corn Borer was imported to the U.S. in broom corn, probably from Hungary, where it is not a serious pest. Over its native range it can complete only one generation per year and has a complex of native parasites and predators. Following its introduction into the U.S., it spread rapidly in the absence of natural enemies and became established throughout corn-growing areas of the country. After
a period of about 20 years, a second generation of corn borers began to appear in some of the warm areas.
4. Many times, species have been purposely introduced to new areas in the belief they will provide benefits. The gypsy moth was imported to Massachusetts from Europe in 1869 by a naturalist who hoped to crossbreed the hardy moth with the silkworm moth to establish a new textile industry. The gypsy moth escaped to become one of the most dreaded pests in the eastern U.S. Larvae of this species can defoliate many different types of trees. Vast sums are being spent in an attempt to contain the pest.
5. Other Introductions:
a. Japanese Beetle (1920 from Japan)
b. Yellow fever mosquito (1600s from Africa)
c. Manduca sexta (1641 from Central America)
d. Phylloxera (1860s to Europe)
e. Asian tiger mosquito (1980's from Japan)
f. Asian long-horned beetle (1980s from ?)
6. The biology of invasive exotic species is a growing discipline. These are some of the important research questions people are asking.
o Can species be ranked based on their potential success as invaders?
o Are some biotic communities and landscapes more vulnerable to invasion than others; if
so, can we predict future invasion risks to different communities?
o Do current resource management practices pre-condition ecosystems for invaders?
o At what stages of an invasion are management actions most likely to be effective?
o What strategies can be used to detect invasions early enough that there is still a chance of eradication?
o What are the economic costs of biotic invasions, and how do these costs relate to the economic benefits associated with increased global trade?
o What mitigation strategies are both effective and economically practical once invaders become firmly established?

D. Insecticide use
1. Insecticides are supposed to kill pests, not create them.
2. Some insect species are more resistant to insecticides than others.
3. Cottony cushion scale was controlled by Vedalia beetle until late 1940's when DDT became available. The Vedalia beetle was wiped out but the CCS, being under a layer of skeleton and glued to trees, was less susceptible. It resurged and nearly ruined the industry again.
4. The moral is: if the destruction of the target pest is accompanied by the destruction of most of the target's natural enemies there may be a rapid rebound in the pest population. Pests may have higher fecundity/generation times.

E. Economic expectations
1. Damage from insects only means something if tied to monetary value of crop. Crop production costs include a multitude of things. If the goods are more attractive, there will be more sales. Beginning in the 1950s, the growers were able to deliver fruit that looked spectacular. We as consumers grew accustomed to the aesthetic nature of the fruit and ignored the hidden costs to the environment of constant application of pesticide.
2. A nonpest of 50 years ago is now a pest because it ruins the aesthetic look of a fruit. It does not in any way reduce the quality of the food.