Synthetic Agricultural Inputs and Its Impact on Foodgrains and Human Health

Abstract

Abstract The objective of this paper is to investigate the use of chemical inputs (fertilizer and pesticides) in the agriculture sector and its impact on human health concerning the availability of food grains, the prevalence of under-nourishment people, and non-communicable diseases worldwide. Inadequate food, unhealthy and low-nutrient food are some of the major reasons for decreasing children's and adults' health wellness. The use of fertilisers can increase crop output and yields but also create environmental pollution. Worldwide, use of chemical fertilizer has increased from 137.18 million tonnes in 2001 to 200.57 million tonnes in 2020. Pesticide elements control and protect plants against visible and invisible pests, which can negatively impact biodiversity and farmers' and/or workers' health, excessive use of pesticides indirectly affects food, and food becomes poisonous. This study found that, in 2020 worldwide, the share of use of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, bactericides, and other pesticides in total pesticide was found to be 17.57%, 57.28%, 24.8%, and 0.28% respectively. The average growth rate of fertilizer use (1.88%) was higher than pesticides use (1.68%) in the agriculture sector worldwide. The per capita net availability of food grain was 347.10 kg per annum and 0.95 kg per day in the world during 2001. The food grain per capita availability is 394.58 kg per annum and 1.08 kg per day in 2020. Worldwide, under-nourished people declined from 13.1% (815.7 million) in 2001 to 9.8% (767.9 million) in 2021, which indicates that one (1) in every nine (9) people still has insufficient food to survive an active and healthy life. Interestingly, this study came to the conclusion that the use of chemical inputs in agriculture has increased per capita net availability of foodgrain, and as a result, the number of undernourished individuals has decreased. On the contrary, the rate of non-communicable diseases and utilization of chemical inputs in agriculture is constantly increasing in the world during the study period.