Relationship Between Environmental Risk and Pesticide Application in Cereal Farming

The aim of this study was to determine the environmental risk of pesticide a.i. applied to control insects and fungus in cereal farming in Sanliurfa, Turkey. In 2013, 8 active ingredients (a.i.) in cereal farming were applied for insect and fungus control in Sanliurfa, Turkey. These a.i. were alpha-cypermethrin(EC), chlorpyrifos(EC;WP), difenoconazole(EC), indoxacarb(WG), lambda-cyhalothrin(EC), lufenuron(EC), propiconazole(EC) and tebuconazole(DS). In the present study, environmental risk of these a.i. was calculated via The Pesticide Occupational and Environmental Risk (POCER) indicators. From the results of this study, it was determined that the highest environmental risk is chlorpyrifos(EC). For this pesticide a.i., Exceedence Factor (EF) was assessed as 3.446 for the environment. Regarding the total score, chorpyrifos(EC) had potential risk as 49.2 percent for the environment. The lowest risk was found for tebuconazole(DS) due to its 0.000 EF value for the environment. In this study, it was concluded that the pesticide contamination in environment could be reduced by some factors such as using environmentally friendly pesticide application techniques, buffer zones, recommended dosage etc.