Perspective on Dietary Risk Assessment of Pesticide Residues in Organic Food

Abstract

Abstract:Previous studies have shown that organically produced food has lower risks of pesticide contamination than food that is not organically produced. However, organically produced food is not entirely free of pesticide residues. A large, high-quality U.S. Department of Agriculture database reports pesticide residues in several dozen organic and conventionally grown foods on an annual basis, and supports detailed analyses of the frequency of residues in conventional and organic food, the number of residues found in an average sample of food, residue levels, and potential dietary risk. These data are used to estimate pesticide dietary exposures and relative risk levels, and to assess the impacts of the current pesticide-related provisions of the National Organic Program (NOP) rule. Fraud appears to be rare based on the available data. Most prohibited residues found in organic produce are detected at levels far below the residues typically found in food grown with pesticides. Relatively high-risk residues are more common in imported foods-both organic and conventional-compared to domestically grown food. The authors conclude that incorporating relative dietary risk into the organic standard would be a more precautionary, risk-based approach than targeting enforcement to organic foods found to contain 5% or more of the applicable Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tolerance. OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2014, 6 3553

Developing strategies to reduce spray drift in pneumatic spraying in vineyards: Assessment of the parameters affecting droplet size in pneumatic spraying

“…Thus, during and immediately after spray application, non-target receptors, including water (Dabrowski and Schulz, 2003), plants (Marrs et al, 1993), and animals (Davis and Williams, 1990;Ernst et al, 1991;Lahr et al, 2000) can be acutely exposed and may therefore face the risk of adverse effects. Thus, drift may cause damage to non-target plants, contaminate water courses, generate illegal residues in food and feed commodities (Benbrook and Baker, 2014), and cause adverse exposure to animals and humans (Felsot et al, 2011;Butler Ellis et al, 2010).…”

Spray Drift Generated in Vineyard during Under-Row Weed Control and Suckering: Evaluation of Direct and Indirect Drift-Reducing Techniques

“…According to ISO22866:2005, spray drift is "the quantity of PPP that is carried out of the sprayed (treated) area by the action of air currents during the application process" [32]. Among the pollutants from PPP use, agrochemical spray drift continues to be a major challenge because PPPs can be deposited in undesirable areas and pose risks to both the environment and bystanders [32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. Spray drift generated by field crop sprayers can reach 50% of the amount of PPP spray mixture applied [39], but in the case of vineyard under-row band application, this is expected to be lower due to the use of reduced boom height, length, and a low sprayer forward speed [40][41][42].…”

Agroecology: A Global Paradigm to Challenge Mainstream Industrial Agriculture

“…Among the benefits reported from the adoption of agroecological practices include increased profitability [11,75]; comparable yields and pest controls [76][77][78][79]; improved water use efficiency in horticultural crops [80], as well as crop performance during drought years [78]; improved soil quality and organic matter content [77,78]; improved and more uniform Nitrogen mineralization, increased organic matter content and soil microbial activity in rotations with tomato [81]; improved biodiversity, ecosystem services, and resilience at both the farm and landscape levels [20,36,75,82,83] and as observed in Kiwi fruit orchards [84]; an improved sustainability index as observed with cacao in Mexico [39,85]; improved nutritional profiles, as observed on long-term trials with tomato [75,86,87]; as well as a reduction of pesticide residues in the body [75,86,88,89], including in children [90]. In turn, the greater ecological balance obtained in agroecological systems through crop diversification and increased soil health often results in a greater activity of above-and below-ground beneficial organisms, resulting in enhanced internal biocontrol mechanisms on the farm [76,79].…”