By Ali Hussein
Farmers use insecticides to keep insects away from their crops. But insecticides can be expensive and toxic, posing a risk to the environment and human health.
Elizabeth Bandason
An alternative is to use natural repellents made from plants. These repellents have a smell that insects don’t like, so the insects stay away from things with that smell.
Elizabeth Bandason, a doctoral researcher in the Department of Entomology at Michigan State University, is interested in figuring out what’s going on in the brains and nervous systems of insects when they smell a repellent. Her research has the potential to provide a safe and affordable way to protect plants while keeping the environment safe from toxic insecticides.
This story first appeared on The Food Fix, another publication of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.