Beginning in the 1980s, concerns about the deleterious effects of synthetic pesticides have driven a significant Southeast Asian research and development effort directed towards alternative pest control strategies, including the use of microbial control agents. Despite this effort, use of microbial control agents has grown slowly in the region. This is the result of an interplay between interna...

Residues of plant protection products can be nowadays found in almost all samples of fruits as even if their application was carried out with respect to standards of Good Agricultural Practice. The intake of these compounds with food of plant origin may result in various disorders and diseases. Since the use of plant protection agents seems unavoidable, it is necessary to treat contaminated foo...

The growing public concern about groundwater contamination, pesticide residues, soil erosion, and wildlife habitat runs parallel to “an emerging interest by many farmers for a more costeffective and environmentally benign agriculture” (USDA, 1990). But only a small number of farmers are using alternative farming systems (Board of Agriculture, 1989). The cause of the limited adoption of sustaina...

© 2012 Zanella et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. An Overview About Recent Advances in Sample Preparation Techniques for Pesticide Res...

an experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of some technological processes on the residual levels of imidacloprid in strawberry fruits and products. according to their half-life (t1/2) values, strawberry fruits can be safely harvested for human consumption 7.4 days after spraying. the removal ratio of imidacloprid residue in strawberries was in the range of 9.9–30.55% by washing with t...

All US government pesticide residue datasets show that persistent organochlorine (OC) insecticide residues are surprisingly common in certain foods despite being off the market for over 20 years. Residues of dieldrin, in particular, pose substantial risks in certain root crops. About 60% of the samples of organic vegetables found to contain pesticides are contaminated with OCs. Government regul...

Proficiency test results from 5 countries involving 61 separate interlaboratory proficiency tests for pesticide residues were examined in this study. A total of 24 different matrixes and 869 relative standard deviations of the mean (or median) pesticide residue concentration were statistically evaluated in relation to the Horwitz function. The aim was to determine whether or not the concentrati...

The toxicological significance of exposures to synthetic chemicals is examined in the context of exposures to naturally occurring chemicals. We calculate that 99.99% (by weight) of the pesticides in the American diet are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves. Only 52 natural pesticides have been tested in high-dose animal cancer tests, and about half (27) are rodent carcinogens; th...