Rationale

I’m going to begin my paper by introducing the topic and why I think it’s important to be aware of the issue. I will talk about some of the problems that happen when pesticides are in soil and briefly overview what I will be talking about in my paper and some of the important sources I came across. I will state my thesis statement at the end to lead my reader into the following paragraphs.
The next section will talk about the history of the use of pesticides. Like where they came from, why they are still around, and what uses they had in the past. I will talk about what pesticides were around before World War II and what ones were invented after or during and also how the synthetic ones are different from the ‘natural’ ones that were used before the war.
The next paragraph will talk about how important soil is. I will give my reader a beautiful picture of what soil does and how it benefits them and then go into how it’s being killed. I will begin by explaining that soil is indeed a living thing and that we are killing the microorganisms in the soil. I will then talk about why the microorganisms are important to the plants in the soil and how they protect them from disease and improve photosynthesis. I want to emphasize how important the rhizosphere is to plants and about how it’s being ruined. Then I want to talk about how when the soil bacteria are affected, the rate of degradation is affected which means that the pesticides stay in the soil for a longer time because they aren't breaking down. I want to explain how pesticides can accumulate in soils and what factors affect the persistence. At this point I want to explain how having a monoculture means that a larger population of pests can thrive off the crop because their food is so abundant meaning that pesticides would be needed to control them.
In the next section I’m going to talk about is about how feeding the soil is going to give a better outcome than if the plants were the focus. Because the soil is dead, the plants are getting sick. More and more farmers are seeing that pesticides aren't needed in order to have a large, disease free crop. Conventional crops fail just as often as organic crops. I want to then turn the attention to the documentary Food Beware because of its contrasts between soil with pesticides in it and organic soil. Then I'm going to talk about the restoration of soil that's going on at the Elwha River. This will give a local example of why we should be feeding the soil, not just the plants.
The next thing I'll talk about is soil loss. I will explain that more is being taking out of the soil than being put back in. I will talk about how Ward Chesworth says that there is a point of 'peak' soil, which has already happened and that we are rapidly losing soil by turning it to sand and pebbles or by erosion die to pesticides. I will explain the differences in runoff from different soils, paying attention to how most water runs over the soil in farms that use pesticides, washing it away.
In this next section I will talk about Monsanto and particularly their herbicide Roundup. I will talk about Roundup Ready seeds and superweeds. I also want to highlight the fact that Monsanto is not sustainable like it claims. Doing the things that it is doing now like monocultures and pesticides, is unnatural and will soon have to have extreme negative effects or wont be able to keep up with its practices. I will then talk about how the USDA (and everyone else!) knows that these chemicals are dangerous and yet they keep approving them. I will let my readers know that when Monsanto's pesticides are tested, they are tested by Monsanto itself and only the main active ingredient is tested.
Next I will talk about how pesticides in soil can leach into groundwater. I will explain why its not good for the ecosystem and what a method is to cleaning them up. I will briefly talk about how pesticides enter the food chain but will not spend much time on his topic since I want to keep it focused more on soil.
In my conclusion I want to restate why the reader should care about this issue and a restatement of my thesis. I will overview the points that I talked about and finally finish will a quotation from Wendell Berry.