Progress report: Vice President's task force on pest control alternatives: Overview

Abstract

Abstract Not Available – First paragraph follows: Pest management practices in California's food, fiber, and forest production system are in transition. Though dominated by synthetic organic pesticides in the two decades immediately following World War II, pest control programs recommended by University of California researchers in recent years have incorporated a variety of strategies, resulting in more ecologically balanced, “integrated” approaches to managing pests in many of California's major crops. Despite the reductions in pesticide use that have resulted from these integrated systems, there is increased public and governmental concern about the effects of extensive pesticide use on the environment, the health of farmworkers, and the pests' development of pesticide resistance. Further, the public now perceives that pesticides constitute an involuntary and unacceptable threat to food safety. This last factor has led to a number of legislative and public initiatives that call for alternative approaches to pest control in crop and animal production.