The Future Role of Pesticides in US Agriculture (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
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· Determine what types of chemical products are most appropriate tools for ecologically based pest management. · Explore the most promising opportunities to increase benefits, and reduce health and environmental risks of pesticide use.
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With respect to the first charge to identify circumstances in which chemical pesticides will continue to be needed in pest management the committee decided early during its deliberations that an assessment of the full range of agricultural pests and of the composition and deployment of chemical pesticides to control pests in various environments would be an impossible task because of the large volume of data and the number of analyses required to generate a credible evaluation. The committee reviewed the literature and received expert testimony on the potential effects of pesticides on productivity, environment, and human health and on the potential to reduce overall risks by improving approaches that use chemicals under diverse conditions soils, crops, climates, and farm-management practices.
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Many products registered in the last decade have safer properties and smaller environmental impacts than older synthetic organic pesticides. The novel chemical products that will dominate in the near future will most likely have a very different genesis from traditional synthetic organic insecticides; the number and diversity of biological sources will increase, and products that originate in chemistry laboratories will be designed with particular target sites or modes of action in mind.
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As for the third charge to identify the most promising opportunities for increasing benefits of and reducing risks posed by pesticide use the committee identified these: · Make research investments and policy changes that emphasize development of pesticides and application technologies that pose reduced health risks and are compatible with ecologically based pest management. · Promote scientific and social initiatives to make development and use of alternatives to pesticides more competitive in a wide variety of managed and natural ecosystems.
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· Reduce the overall environmental impact of the agricultural enterprise. The most promising opportunity for increasing benefits and reducing risks is to invest time, money, and effort into developing a diverse toolbox of pest-management strategies that include safe products and practices that integrate chemical approaches into an overall, ecologically based framework to optimize sustainable production, environmental quality, and human health.
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By spreading the burden of crop protection over multiple tactics, rather than relying on a single tool, farmers will face less risk of crop loss and lower rates of pest adaptation to control measures. Because pests will continue to evolve in response to pest controls, research needs to support development of pest-management tools that reduce selection pressure,
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A greater emphasis on research not only on chemicals themselves, but also on the ecological consequences of pesticide use can increase the probability that new products will be readily integrated into ecologically based pest-management systems. Recommendation 3b.
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The lack of basic information on pest population spatial and temporal dynamics is a major impediment to implementation of ecologically based pest management. NSF and EPA could make an important contribution by funding research associated with understanding of pest-population and community dynamics.
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Although there have been substantial advances in research on risk perception in recent years, risk communication is a relatively new discipline. Research priorities include elucidating impacts of increasing benefit perceptions in risk communication, developing empirical methods for more accurate characterization of public perceptions, identifying reasons for differing qualitative and quantitative perceptions about pesticide technology and agrobiotechnology, and determining whether risk communication can reduce the gap that exists between public perceptions and scientific risk assessments.
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The public sector has a unique role to play in supporting research on minor use cropping systems, where the inadequate availability of appropriate chemicals and the lack of environmentally and economically acceptable alternatives to synthetic chemicals contribute disproportionately to concerns about chemical impacts. The public sector can foster innovation in product development and pest-management practices by continuing to reduce barriers to investment by the private sector and by increasing implementation of regulatory processes that encourage product and practice development.
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If that time could be reduced to less than 12 months for minor crops without compromising human and environmental-safety screening for minor-use crops, there would be an even greater favorable financial impact on small companies, and farmers would benefit by having earlier access to products. Also EPA's BPPD and California's Department of Pesticide Regulation conduct duplicative reviews and could increase the sharing of the review work.
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At the farm level, incentives for adopting efficient and environmentally sound integrated pest-management and ecologically based pest-management systems can come from · Expanding crop insurance for adoption of integrated pest-management and ecologically based pest-management systems practices. tices.
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Because knowledge also has public-good properties, a major responsibility of the public sector is to provide basic knowledge and information for decision-makers, in both the public and private sectors Education in scientific and technical fields is designed to meet anticipated demands in the private and public sectors. As long as there is a demand for pesticide-based solutions to pest-control problems, the education system has to train people to work in this field and to provide independent pesticide expertise in the public sector.
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The public sector must act on its responsibility to provide quality education to ensure well-informed decision-making in both the private and public sectors. This effort encompasses efforts in the agricultural sector, in the academic sector, and in the public sector at large.
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The public sector should provide incentives and training for scientists to communicate effectively to the public about principles and practices of ecologically based pest management. Such incentives are almost nonexistent in many institutions, particularly outside the agriculture colleges.
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, but we will specifically exclude agents that are normally considered to be biological control agents and plant varieties that are produced by traditional breeding programs. We will extend the term to agents used in veterinary medicine to control insect and nematode pests.
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