Weeds and society: challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Weeds have negative economical, environmental and social impacts on the society. The negativeeconomic impacts include competition with crop for nutrients and water leading to reducedproductivity, input-use efficiency and quality, competition with grasslands and pastures leading toreduced stocking capacity, loss of ecotourism values, impact on water quality and irrigation,increased management costs by way of using different control methods. It was estimated thatweeds cause an annual loss of 11 billion US $ in 10 major crops in India. The majorenvironmental impacts of weeds are: degradation of natural vegetation and biodiversity. Weedslike Parthenium, Chromolaena, Mimosa, Lantana etc. have the potential to completely destroyall native vegetation, and pose a serious threat to biodiversity in India. The social impacts includeeffects on human health, recreation, safety and aesthetics. Weeds harbor a variety of disease vectorsand therefore, a threat to human living directly.Parthenium is known to cause many healthhazards. Aquatic weeds such as water hyacinth and Salvinia cause safety hazards. These weedscause practical problems for marine transportation, fishing and at intakes for hydro-power andirrigation schemes