Giving Compass' Take:

• Anne Casey explains how the lack of pesticide buffer zones in the Midwest exposes children to dangerous chemicals that are detrimental to their health. 

• How can funders help protect children from the harms of pesticides? 

• Learn how pesticides fit into the food system. 

Hundreds of rural schools in Midwest states nestle against fields of corn and soybeans that are routinely sprayed with pesticides that could drift onto school grounds.

Health experts say those pesticides might pose risks to children, and nine states in other regions of the country have been concerned enough to pass laws requiring buffer zones.

But states in the Midwest do not require any kind of buffer zone between schools and crop fields and seldom require any notification that pesticides are about to be sprayed, a review of laws by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

But Marc Lame, a professor in the school of public and environmental affairs at Indiana University, said Midwestern states could benefit from adopting similar legislation.

Pesticides include a range of products that prevent damage to crops or plants, and refer to herbicides, which kill weeds, insecticides, which kill or deter insects, and fungicides, which inhibit fungi. Some products, particularly insecticides, have been associated with neurological problems and childhood developmental delays at low levels of exposure.

Read the full article about pesticides by Anne Casey at Harvest Public Media.