A Tragedy of the Commons situation exists whenever two or more activities, each, which in order to produce results, rely on a shared limited resource. Results for these activities continue to develop as long as their use of the limited resource doesn't exceed the resource limit. Once this limit is reached the results produced by each activity are limited to the level at which the resource is replenished. As an example, consider multiple departments with an organization using IT resources, until they've exhausted IT capacity.

• "used to reduce yield losses to pests"
• "avoid economic losses to ensure economical survival"
• "increase supply market and reduce market prices"
• "ignorance of sustainable use"
• "integral part of commercially grow high yielding varieties so without use, high yields may not be sustained"
• "damage to agriculture land from the use occurs over long period of time so costs may not look serious short term, but reduces economic welfare in long term"
• "environmental damage: pollutes rivers and groundwater, destroys beneficial predators and interferes with ecosystem overall"
• "health risks underestimated"
• "chemical companies selling it have incentive to push their use by advertising and promotion" (1,9).