Use Of Pesticides For The Purpose example essay topic

1. When the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) was passed in 1996 positive and negative impacts followed. Aggregate exposure was now taken into assessment, meaning the total sum of exposure to a pesticide would be considered when creating tolerance levels. Through combination of diet, drinking water, and home exposure to pesticides were also considered when creating tolerances.

Exposure to children was a greater concern so a 10 X safety factor was included to ensure that the legal tolerance for an adult was multiplied by ten to create a separate tolerance for children. A tolerance reassessment program was also created with a deadline that stated the EPA must reevaluate all tolerances that were in place as of 1996 within 10 years to bring everything up to current standards. So far so good, but there are some problems. In efforts to protect people from pesticide exposure (FQPA) set guidelines and rules which restricted pesticides or took them off the shelf completely because they had previously been used in homes.

These same pesticides could also have been used commercially at low risk with great results, now they are unavailable because home owner Joe could sleep walk one night and mistake the bug spray for OJ. Economically the impacts could cause problems for companies in mid stream research that had pre set consumer targets such as home owners. Now these companies have to restrict sales to strictly a commercial market due to newly proposed tolerance levels for home owner use. Another problem is time is money and the EPA is going to be spending a lot of time reevaluating all the previous pesticides on the market. Time that could be spent outside the office solving new problems instead of fixing old ones. 2.

Public health exemption permits use of a pesticide in control of a public health emergency such as controlling rats which carry ticks that spread lyme disease. Crisis exemptions allow use of unregistered pesticides for 15 days, an example would be control of anthrax in government buildings. A quarantine exemption allows a given area such as a state or county to use a restricted pesticide to control a pest population if warranted, for example fruit fly populations in Florida. 3.

The Delaney Clause is (FFD CA) states that no additive shall be deemed to be safe for human food if it is found to induce cancer in man or animals. Zero tolerance concept. It was first established in 1958. FQPA removed pesticide residue tolerances from Delaney Clause constraints.

4. OPTS Harmonized Test 810 - Product Performance Test 830 - Product Properties Test 835 - Fate, Transport and Transformation Test 840 - Spray Drift Test 5. The (WPS) applies where pesticides are used in production of agricultural plants for commercial or research purposes on farms, forests, nurseries, greenhouses, and related structures. So home applications are not covered, private business applications are not covered when landscapes are concerned, and anything else that would fall outside these boundaries. 6. Private Applicator - Any person who uses, or supervises the use, of pesticides for the purpose of raising an agricultural commodity.

The pesticide use can be on land owned or rented by the applicator or the applicator's employer. Examples of private applicators are dairy farmers, vegetable or fruit growers, greenhouse growers, ranchers, nurserymen, and home gardeners. Commercial Applicator - Any person who uses or supervises the use of any pesticide for any purpose or on any property other than as provided by the definition of "private pesticide applicator". Any person who uses or supervises the use of pesticides on property other than your own (whether or not money is exchanged). Also, any person who applies pesticides as part of his job with any government agency. 7.

EPA uses the risk cup analogy to describe how tolerances are set. Full cup represents the amount of pesticide a person could receive every day for 70 years without significant health risk. The EPA use to consider only exposure to pesticides in food products or dietary exposure when filling the cup. Now the EPA considers exposure from all possible sources as well as dietary exposure.

This essentially fills the cup up quicker or you could say makes the cup smaller. Essentially the EPA has decided to drastically reduce the amount of pesticides by law we are exposed to. 8. Small American farms have been the backbone of this country for decades.

Recent times have seen a major shift in this trend due to large companies buying out smaller farms and farm related companies. Competition is the bottom line, large companies have a greater advantage over small farms and companies because they buy cheap and sell even cheaper because of resources and bulk acquisition of materials. Pesticide companies along with other farm related businesses that consolidate are competing for those few cents which keep smaller farms and companies above ground. Pesticide corporations are not the only reason small farms are disappearing in this country but they definitely contribute by squeezing small farm operations for money.