Pesticides in Perspective–An Introduction Over the last 30 years or so pesticides have become an essential part of our lives due to the demand by today's consumer for a wide range of high quality healthy food produce all year round at a reasonable price. Pesticides have been one of the key components which has made it possible to satisfy these growing demands. During the same time span there has been an ever increasing pressure to ensure that the pesticides we use are safe and also that they pose no signiÆcant risk to the environment. This pressure has come from three prime directions. First the consumer whose concerns over food safety have been heightened in recent years by a number of food industry scares such as listeria salmonella BSE etc.which have undermined consumer conÆdence. Second environmental pressure groups have kept pesticides in the limelight especially concerning pesticide residues in food and water. Third there has also been a dramatic increase in the requirements from international regulatory authorities. Today it is probably fair to say that the pesticide industry is one of the most highly regulated of the chemical industries if not the most highly regulated. The number and scope of guidelines is ever increasing and they are often politically not scientiÆcally driven. We all face the problem of feeding an ever-increasing world population which some predict will grow by over 50% in the coming 30 years with little scope to increase the available land for cultivation.Additionally without crop protection it has been estimated that This journal is # The Royal Society of Chemistry 2000 losses in crop production would rise by some 25±30%. Some Æve years ago it was estimated that chemically supported high yield farming was saving about 10 million square miles of wild life habitat from being used for food production. The risk to wildlife from modern pesticides is small compared to the risk posed by habitat loss if we attempted to feed the rising population by conventional farming systems. Thus the challenge is to increase food production without increasing the area of land under cultivation. Therefore the use of pesticides must in the foreseeable future be an integral part of the strategy for sustainable agriculture; the question is how.In other words how do we ensure that the use of pesticides is safe to the consumer and the environment? A series of articles in this column will address this question. To answer the question of ensuring safety to the consumer and the environment there has in recent years been a signiÆcant move towards risk assessment particularly in the areas of consumer dietary exposure environmental fate and ecology. Such risk assessments involve the generation of speciÆc data which is then incorporated into predictive models the output of which indicates whether or not there is an acceptable risk to the consumer or the environment. The assessments follow a tiered approach with ever increasing reÆnements or which often require the input of further data.Three articles will address each of these areas individually in much greater detail explaining the objective of the assessment the data required the models themselves and how the output from the models can be interpreted. From an industry perspective certain issues are critical as to whether a pesticide can be successfully marketed over a prolonged period. One key aspect in the USA is obtaining so called `Safer Status' with the EPA which means the compound would get an expedited review and hence would come to market signiÆcantly quicker. For some compounds this can be critical as far as the business case is concerned. An article will be featured which will outline the process and the key elements in obtaining safer status classiÆcation.Another key consideration is whether or not a pesticide is ICM (Integrated Crop Management) compatible. This like obtaining safer status is a complicated process and is not a black or white decision but is made up of a number of related issues. An article will explain the importance of being ICM compatible and how it is attained. The series will begin with an article giving details of the UK and European Food-Monitoring Programme who is involved how it is conducted and the important Ændings will also be summarised. For the consumer and of course the government this type of survey is extremely important since this is a true measure of the success of the strategies put in place to minimise the exposure and hence the risk to the health of the consumer. Dr Terry Clark Zeneca Agrochemicals E-mail Terry.clark@aguk.zeneca.com 3N J. Environ. Monit. 2000 2