The conference proceeding, Enhanced Biodegradation of Pesticides in the Environment written by Kenneth D. Racke and Joel R. Coats, is a secondary source because the authors use results from a variety of literature articles in order to reach a general conclusion on the effects of pesticides in the environment. This book also had an advisory board made up of 16 editors.
Pesticides in the soil ecosystem are not as effective in pest control as was first assumed. According to Racke microbial ecosystems are capable of rapid breakdown of any foreign organic or chemicals materials. This means the soil can clean itself from any pesticide rather rapidly, however this has caused an increased failure in pest control. Do to the resilience of the soil pesticide applicators have to apply more chemicals more often and maintain the toxicity levels in the soil for a longer period of time in order to be effective in killing pests. But furthermore, much of the pesticides that represents direct application to the soil are lost in the atmosphere. Considerable amounts of pesticides reach soils because of spray drift, runoff, or wash-off. Overall, pesticides become tangles with degradation processes that affect all abiotic organics added to the dynamic ecosystem.
This book chapter ties into my topic well, which is the effects of agrochemicals on humans. In order to understand why pesticides are causing harm, I must first understand why pesticides are widely used at such high quantities. It turns out pesticides are terrible at staying in the soil, much of it is lost to the atmosphere and a small portion of it is broken down by UV light. This is why so many pesticides are needed, because a small amount of the pesticides used are actually working. This also helps me understand that much of what is laid down is lost into the atmosphere, this means it is easy for pesticides to move through the air and end up in another location, causing unwanted effects or disease there.

Racke, Kenneth D., and Joel R. Coats. Enhanced Biodegradation of Pesticides in the Environment: Developed from a Symposium Sponsored by the Division of Agrochemicals at the 198th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Miami, Florida, September 10-15, 1989. American Chemical Society, 1990.