Evaluation of the environmental impacts of pesticides used in sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) production systems in Khorasan provinces

Environmental optimizing of pest management strategies and improving theirs trends towards minimum environmental risks programs is a matter of considerable concern of food scientists particularly in developing countries. This study evaluates the environmental impacts of pesticides consumption based on Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) model in different sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) production systems in Khorasan provinces as the largest producer of this strategic crop in Iran. For this purpose, information of pesticides used in 26 locations of 11 geographic regions in Khorasan provinces, (North, Razavi and South Khorasan provinces) in three types of production systems was gathered: mechanized, semi-mechanized and traditional. In all three production systems, based on EIQ index which uses three risk components: farm worker, consumer and leaching and environment to estimate the relative potential risk of pesticide, the most negative effect of pesticide consumption was on ecosystem organisms as ecological component. Results showed that there is no relationship between sugar beet yield and increasing both diversity of pesticides types and quantity of active ingredients consumption as well. Moreover, granted that increasing in mechanization in sugar beet production caused more environmental load in farm, considering sugar beet yield, mechanized systems resulted in 33% less environmental damage per 1 ton sugar beet produced. Thus, it is expected that there is a possibility to improve ecological function of Khorasan sugar beet production systems without economic loss by substitution or decreasing the use of pesticides. Also, employing more mechanized and more productive systems may reduce environmental hazards in national scale and decrease environmental load due to transportation of non local production in international scale.