Plant Protectıon Products: Markets and The European Union

Year 2010, Year: 2010 Issue: 2, 43 - 54, 01.07.2010

Dogan Isık Husrev Mennan

Abstract

Plant protection products (ppps) are treatments used to keep crops healthy, as their name suggests. Cooperatively, they are also identified as pesticides. These types of chemicals either occur naturally or are synthetic. They help to control diseases, insects and weeds that harm or destroy our food crops. Cooperatively, they are also identified as pesticides. A plant’s natural response is to produce its own protection, when attacked by disease or pests, in much the same way as humans produce antibodies. Synthetic crop protection chemicals act as ‘medicines for plants’, only needed when the plant’s own defence mechanisms do not work well enough. Crops need to be protected from a variety of different pests, organisms that present a hazard to the crop. While we often think of pests as insects, a pest can also be a weed, a disease or an animal (such as a rat) or even bacteria. Insecticides, fungicides and herbicides are all crop protection products. While these three are the most common crop protection products, other types are used against specific pests. For example, molluscicides against slugs, acaricides for mites and rodenticides to control rats. Insects, slugs and other pests, however, play an important role in the natural ecosystem. So it’s important to strike a sensible balance between healthy, profitable crops and the wildlife that thrives in and around the area.

Keywords

Plant protection products