Sustainable Management of Pesticides

Abstract

Pesticide is any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest (insects, mites, nematodes, weeds, rats, etc.), including insecticide, herbicide, fungicide etc. used to control pests and to safeguard public health. Use of pesticide has secured the food production and enhanced the amount of produce. Once the pesticide enters in contact with the environment, its fate is determined by several natural processes (adsorption, degradation, erosion and leaching to groundwater). Of the total pesticides applied in agriculture, about 1-10% reach to the target plant, about 30% is lost in atmosphere, nearly 1-5% is lost due to runoff/surface erosion and roughly 1% is lost by leaching. Pesticides applied in the soil leaches up to 50 -100 %. Pesticide management reduces contamination of water from pesticides and foster effective and safe use of pesticides without causing degradation to the environment. This study provides an overview of pesticides on recent developments in sustainable management on strategies, practices and their effectiveness, core elements, principles of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and bio-pesticides in crop protection. This study recommends that during application of pesticides, guidelines approved by FAO and WHO (2014), from production to disposal of pesticides in the 'International Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management' (4th version) should be strictly followed by government regulators, the private sector, civil society as a best practice in managing pesticides throughout their lifecycle.