Although the FDA and EPA regulate pesticides used in the country, one of the most disturbing aspects of pesticide production is that pesticides that have been banned for the use in the United States continue to be manufactured in the United States and sold abroad.
In many less-developed countries, the regulatory infrastructure doesn’t exist to require testing, labeling and product review of imparted pesticides.
Pesticide poisoning is common among foreign farmworkers and ironically many of the pesticides come back to the United States in the form of residues on imported produce.
A prudent pesticide strategy must include an evaluation of need and consider the following:
- The possibility of avoiding use of the pesticide or using smaller quantities
- The safety of production workers and applicators of the pesticide.
- The safety of consumers of the product, including potentially sensitive segments of the population
- The interactions of pesticides with other chemicals including drugs, nutrients and other chemicals
- Environmental and ecological concerns, including groundwater and surface water contamination, and effects on wildfire
- Persistence (how long it stays in the environment), bioaccumulation (how it concentrates in species other than the target) and how it might alter the balance of nature.
There are also risk benefit considerations, including the economic aspects of increasing food production per acre, decreasing food losses during storage, and destroying vectors of disease such as the aflatoxins that grow on untreated peanuts.
Pesticide require careful, judicious study so that they can be used safely.
The strategy of using pesticide
