The start-up drift-sense has developed a system capable of detecting the drift of pesticides and other harmful substances, and alerting them to their source and quantity
Jonathan Sher, Angle - news agency for science and the environment
It's no secret that most of the fruits and vegetables we eat are the product of industrialized agriculture that uses pesticides of various types to protect the crop from pests in the field or orchard. According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture In the 2019 pesticide residue survey that included approximately 1,400 samples from 80 different crops, abnormalities were found in 12 percent of the samples. The deviations were divided into 3.6 percent minor deviations from the standard, 6.3 percent from the use of the pesticide on crops whose use is not authorized on the product's label, and in the remaining samples (approximately another 2 percent) deviations were found due to high concentrations, with residues of pesticides prohibited for use in Israel being found in some of the samples.
Besides the danger of consuming pesticide residues with our salad, some of the pesticides that are sprayed are carried by the wind and drift into residential areas adjacent to the agricultural land. In densely populated Israel, the phenomenon of living in close proximity to agricultural land or on land that was part of agricultural land and remains today surrounded by such just keeps expanding (17 Percentage of all agricultural areas in Israel located up to 50 meters from residential buildings), This is a significant risk to the health of those residents.
Now, a new Israeli company named drift-sense (Bar Ilan University's Unbox incubator9 offers a solution that promises to reduce the extent of pesticide spillage from agricultural fields by more than 60 percent, and this only by changing the timing of pesticide application and without the need to change the material or the method of spraying. According to the company, in the near future its method Become a global standard, which will change the way fields are sprayed all over the world.
Boll fertility, Defects born and cancer
"Those who live near a field or plantation may be exposed to pesticides in high concentrations through the skin or through the breath," says Dr. Hagit Ulanovsky, an expert in health and environmental risk management from the SP interface company. According to Ulanovsky, it is not known exactly what level of exposure to pesticide drift is considered dangerous, partly due to a paucity of studies from around the world. "In Israel there is such a great proximity between residential buildings and fields or orchards mainly because of a change in the zoning of agricultural land for construction due to the overcrowding in the cities," she explains. "Thus, for example, in Nes Ziona or Mezekrat Batia, places that were agricultural colonies in the past, or in cities like Rehovot, you can see neighborhoods that are surrounded on all sides by agricultural areas. It's nice to have green in your eyes, but you have to take into account the problem of being close to the spray."
Even if it is not clear exactly the degree of exposure required for pesticide drift to be a health hazard, there is no debate about the health damage of direct exposure to pesticides. "In Israel, we know of cases of poisoning of Thai agricultural workers, or cases where people entered a sprayed plantation without permission and arrived at the hospital in a real life-threatening situation," Ulanovsky explains. Regarding the chronic effects of exposure to pesticides, Ulanovsky refers toStudies from California, in which families living on agricultural farms were examined. According to these studies, prolonged exposure to pesticides may cause, among other things, fertility problems, birth defects, problems with the hormonal system and cancer.
damage economic Term long
Pesticide drift is not only a health problem, but also an economic problem for the farmer. The percentage of pesticides that drift in the air and do not reach their destinations is actually a waste of money. To achieve the same level of coverage, the farmer is required to spray more and therefore purchase more expensive pesticides. In addition, extensive drift increases the danger that the pesticide will reach a nearby crop for which it is not suitable and cause damage to it.
However, the most significant economic danger caused by inaccurate spraying is related to the long term. "The more you spray, the more you risk creating pests that are resistant to the pesticide. This is similar to unnecessary use in antibiotics that produce resistant bacteria", Olanovsky explains.
Pesticide-resistant pests pose a major economic threat to farmers. For example, it is estimated that one species of weed (Alopecurus myosuroide) that has developed resistance to pesticides causes the loss of About 800 thousand tons of wheat in British agriculture every year. It seems that the process by which pests develop resistance to pesticides He is unstoppable, because it is a type of artificial selection that is similar to the natural selection process that exists in nature, but it is certainly possible to slow it down in various ways, including the use of precise doses of pesticides.
generate economic benefit for farmers
"The secret is to act from a meeting of interests," says Dr. Ran Shaoli, one of the founders of a company drift-sense, which was founded under the umbrella of unbox ventures - the socio-environmental entrepreneurship center of Bar-Ilan University. "We came to the conclusion that in order to solve problems of damage to the natural environment or health damage caused by the drift of pesticides, it is necessary to generate economic benefit for the farmers."
According to Shaoli, on average about three quarters of the pesticide that is sprayed does not reach the target and is dispersed in the environment. As mentioned, more precise spraying saves farmers costs of using materials and working hours. In addition, the materials will remain effective against pests for a longer period of time, therefore the companies that produce the pesticides, and which have to invest a lot of money in the development of new pesticides, support the solution offered by the company.
When should you spray?
So what exactly is the revolutionary tool that promises to help all these players? This is software that tells the farmer when he should spray - but it may be more complicated than it sounds. "In order to spray correctly, you need to take into account meteorological data such as temperature, humidity and wind direction, the type of material being sprayed with its unique physical properties and the way it reacts to different weather conditions, and the way of spraying - for example by tractor or flight," explains Dr. Elad Segal, co-founder and the CEO of the company. "Each spraying event looks different due to changes in these parameters, which affect the dispersion of the substance in the air."
With the help of Dr. Pavel Kunin, the company's third partner and VP of Technology, they created a computer model that knows how to calculate the form in which any substance is dispersed in the air given meteorological conditions and spraying method. "We know how to provide a solution that fits the specific case of each farmer and each of his specific areas," Segal declares. "The recommendation we give in the end is what time to spray - say between five and seven, and not between three and five, given a certain time frame that the farmer provides."
According to Segal, a feasibility study at an experimental farm in northern Israel, which was recently completed, found that the company's recommendations resulted in a 60 percent decrease in silt spillage as well as a 30 percent increase in the accuracy of the spray in terms of reaching the target and uniform distribution, this compared to a control plot where spraying was done at the time recommended by an expert farmer. "In the end, we showed that by means of a simple tool, which does not require the farmer to upgrade his equipment with expensive tools, like other solutions that exist on the market, we can bring about a very significant reduction in the loss of pesticides to the air," he says.
In the first phase, the company turns to the American agricultural market, where the possible market share for its activity is about 6 billion dollars a year, and it has already established a number of pilots and collaborations with agricultural farms and with food processing companies and large companies that produce pesticides. "We hope that our environmental impact for the benefit of the residents of Israel will grow out of our activity in the global market," Shaoli concludes.
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