Recent pesticide policy initiatives focus on reducing risks through agricultural research on pest control alternatives. This paper illustrates how research resources could be targeted to reduce risks to food consumers from dietary pesticide residue intake. For 50 chemicals on 10 fruits and vegetables, we estimate consumers' dietary intake of pesticides and use those estimates to develop risk indicators, expressing dietary intake as a percentage of safe levels. These indicators show that risks are higher for small children. The indicators allow us to rank pesticides according to their contribution to risk for this vulnerable sub-population. We then trace these risks to four sources: onfarm pesticide use, post-harvest pesticide use, pesticides used on imported foods, and canceled pesticides that persist in the environment. For pesticides that are used mainly on-farm, we show that the development of alternatives for risk reduction could be targeted to particular regions and crops. However, research to develop on-farm pest control alternatives will not address all of the sources of pesticide residues in the diet.