On the ethics of biological control of insect pests

Altering earth’s ecosystem by people have been occurred since long time ago and caused the extinction of hundreds of species of living organisms. During the 15th century with the age of exploration, many changes in the ecosystem have been caused by the transfer of living organisms, whether plants or animals from their original habitat to new areas, resulting in the emergence of pests and diseases that did not exist previously. This has led to the discovery of pesticides, which have increased their use significantly and causing environmental problems, so scientists thought to find alternative practices to save the environment.

• There are four main tactics to control pests including natural, conservation, augmentation, and importation. Natural biological control means the use of natural enemy of the pest to reduce their numbers lower levels than it was. Conservation it means increasing the number of biological enemies of pests by manipulating the environment. Also, can left space in the farm without treatment by insecticide to begin spreading the natural enemy of the pest.

Selecting the appropriate time to use the pesticide can affect the pest without affecting the natural enemy. Augmentation is the periodic release of natural enemies. This form of control tends to be more invasive than conservation. Importation is the introduction of an exotic natural enemy to the pest. This is usually implemented by pesticides and other chemical agents.

• Many negative impacts of pesticides are documented, including insecticide resistance in pests, worker poisonings, and more. The ethics of importation are often questioned.

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It is difficult for companies to ethically defend chemical pest control as they are a concern for the natural environment. Pests are constantly evolving to resist pesticides which makes chemical control a short-term solution to the problem.

Humans are largely impacted by the production of agriculture. It is important that humans know how their food is produced and what measures are taken to protect their food. The different biological controls should be basic human knowledge as it is important for humans to know how their food is kept safe from pests. Biological controls have a huge impact on agriculture and farming as it controls the pest infestations

In this article Bentley and O’Neil raises many good points about the use of biological control tactics on pests in agriculture. The article explains the four different tactics of biological control in detail and explains the impact on the environment and human race. The article also contains examples of tactic usage and the impact it had on the people and environment, examples help to tighten the argument in Bentley and O’Neil’s article.

While Bentley and O’Neil had some strong arguments in their article about biological control and the ethics, they lacked important details . The article mainly focused on the negative impacts of insecticides as well. While there are few positives on insecticides, it is important to mention them to strengthen the argument. Rebuttals are necessary in strong argumentative articles, which is something O’Neil and Bentley’s article lacks.