Cheap, late night pizza isn't the only food that concerns college students. Alexander Richter from North Carolina State University has developed a novel approach to delivering certain pesticides to help boost yields ahead of predicted record demands for food in the next 35 years, MIT News reported.
A new way to use pesticides
Richter, a graduate student at NCSU, won the $15,000 Lemelson-MIT "Eat it!" Student Prize in May 2015 when the school doled out its awards for the Lemelson-MIT National Collegiate Student Prize Competition, which gave $65,000 in prizes to winners from among 28 schools. He won for a new approach he's developing to deliver certain pesticides.
To spread pesticides for fungi and bacteria, Ritcher uses lignin-core environmentally-benign nanoparticles. This novel delivery method would allow farmer's to use as much as 90 percent less pesticide chemicals while achieving similar effects, MIT reported. Additionally, this method is designed to have a reduced environmental impact.
Ritcher and his fellow award winners also received exposure to investors and national media coverage as part of their reward, MIT noted.
MIT explained that this innovation could be increasingly important as food demand is expected to grow. As the United Nations predicts, the global population is expected to exceed 9 billion people by 2050. This means billions of more mouths to feed around the world and increasing total food production by as much as a third. And, with much of this population growth coming from countries in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, where farming is difficult, not losing crop yield is critical.
Currently, about 37 percent of global crop yields are lost to pests and disease. Often pesticides are not used effectively because they aren't spread thoroughly throughout the crops. Potentially, Richter's new delivery system could increase yields, reduce pesticide costs for farmers, increase chemical accuracy and reduce environmental impact. While there is still work to be done before this is a viable solution to tradition pesticide application, it is promising in this innovative time for agriculture.
Problems with spraying pesticides
One of the most common ways to apply pesticides today is by spraying it. On a small scale, people spray with backpack sprayers, on larger scaled machinery or even airplanes can be used to spray the pesticide. While these methods may be most effective for the farmer, they don't always work the best. Spray drift and pesticide run off are common and serious issues that carry the pesticide away from the intended target and into the ecosystem. This leads to environmental damage and doesn't protect the original crop.
