Alex Kroneberg, representative of the FMC company for Central America, said that the products in today's market do not accumulate in the environment. ''More than 90 percent of the products available now have a very short life of just hours, days or weeks. They transform into substances that degrade over a time and they become carbon dioxide,'' he said. That is why the products today are very specific and act only on specific substances of the plant or plague that is being attacked. They cannot harm other organisms,'' she said. At the same that they contribute to the development of a sustainable agricultural production, the pesticide industry is facing the challenge of creating effective and inexpensive products.
Cost is one of the main arguments that industry wins over organic agriculture.
David McLaughlin, direct of Environmental Affairs of the transnational company Chiquita Brands, said that producing organic bananas would have a high socio-economic and environmental cost, because the farms would have to return to extensive cultivation. Such arguments, however, carried little weight for environmentalists. Those who defended the organic model said that the chemicals are not as effective as they seem and that technology also accompanies pesticide-free agriculture. Plagues can destroy between 50 and 60 percent of crops in some areas if pesticides are not used,'' said Pimentel. This means that the chemical products manage to save only between 10 and 20 percent of the harvest.