Economic & Political Weekly EPW June 26, 2010 vol xlv nos 26 & 27 199 The project, “Pesticide Use in Food Crops of Kerala” was funded by the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment. Thanks to the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics and Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment for funding the project and all those who helped in...

Although the human health effects of pesticides have decreased, chronic health problems are still significant in many developing countries and emerging economies. In this project we examined the various exposure pathways of pesticide application over the whole life cycle of potatoes grown in Colombia. Exposure pathways included e.g. workers' exposure during pesticide preparation and application...

Insect pollinators are essential for both the production of a large proportion of world crops and the health of natural ecosystems. As important pollinators, bumblebees must learn to forage on flowers to feed both themselves and provision their colonies.Increased use of pesticides has caused concern over sublethal effects on bees, such as impacts on reproduction or learning ability. However, li...

Centre d’Etude pour un Développement Agricole Plus Autonome (CEDAPA) is a group of farmers in Brittany (western France) which proposes a mainly pasture-based milk and meat production system defined by a set of prohibitions and obligations. CEDAPA farmers claim that their production system causes less environmental damage than the current systems used by most other farmers. With respect to pesti...

Current methods for the detection and identification of pesticide residues on agricultural and landscape plants require time-consuming and expensive chemical analyses [14]. This problem causes delays for agricultural land managers in making important crop-management and pest-control decisions involving pesticide applications. The presence of pesticide residues on food crops also is a major heal...

An analysis of pesticide residue data was performed to describe and quantify differences between organically grown and non-organic fresh fruits and vegetables. Data on residues in foods from three different market categories (conventionally grown, integrated pest management (IPM)-grown/no detectable residues (NDR), and organically grown) were compared using data from three test programmes: The ...

Human exposure assessment tools represent a means for understanding human exposure to pesticides in agricultural activities and managing possible health risks. This paper presents a pesticide flow analysis modeling approach developed to assess human exposure to pesticide use in greenhouse flower crops in Colombia, focusing on dermal and inhalation exposure. This approach is based on the materia...

In the last decades, the use of pesticides has increased exponentially agricultural production. However, it is a well known fact that excessive use of pesticides can be hazardous both for the environment and human health. It is thus essential to assess thoroughly the impact on the environment of a given pesticide before its application. When they are sprayed on crops, pesticides are absorbed by...

Pesticide consumption causes, pollution of groundwater, surface water and soil.Its use is increasing at an alarming rate, for increasingthe agricultural yield. Their extensive use exerts profound and deleterious effects on wildlife populations and humans. Methyl parathion(MP) is one such pesticide which is widely used throughout the world to protect the crops from chewing and sucking insects su...