Pest control
Pest control refers to the regulation or management of another species defined as a pest, usually because it is detrimental to a person's health, the ecology or the economy.Pest control is at least as old as agriculture. In order to maximize food production, it is necessary to protect crops from competing species of plants, as well as from herbivores competing with humans. This can be done with conventional, chemical or biological weapons.
The conventional approach was probably the first to be employed, since it is comparatively easy to destroy weeds by burning them or plowing them under, and to kill larger competing herbivores, such as crows and other birds eating seeds. Techniques such as crop rotation, companion planting, also known as intercropping or mixed cropping, and the selective breeding of pest-resistant cultivars also have a long history.
Chemical pest control dates back to 2500BCE, when the Sumerians used sulphur compounds as insecticides. The Rig Veda (c. 2000BCE) also mentions the use of poisonous plants for pest control. And the ancient Chinese and Egyptians are also known to have used chemical pest control. But it was only with the industrialization and mechanization of agriculture in the 18th and 19th century, and the introduction of the insecticides pyrethrum and derris that chemical pest control became the method of choice. In the 20th century, the discovery of several synthetic insecticides, such as DDT, and herbicides boosted this development. Chemical pest control is still the predominant type of pest control today, although its long-term effects led to a renewed interest in traditional and biological pest control towards the end of the 20th century.
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