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Several NAPIAP (National Agricultural Pesticide Impact Assessment Program)-supported surveys have been conducted on pesticide usage in Kentucky over the past several years. County Agricultural Extension Agents were asked to give their perceptions of pesticide use in their counties based on their experience and knowledge of local crops and pests. The data presented in this database are results from these surveys conducted in 1990-1992. The targeted areas of these surveys included five major agricultural commodities and vegetable and fruit growers.
Final reports for these projects focused on high points and provided information in condensed form. However, the large amount of information contained in these databases can also be made available as raw data for use by County Extension Agents and interested members of the public. That is the purpose of providing this database in .DBF format on CDROM and through our World Wide Web site. The database file can be downloaded and brought into any database manager software that will import the .DBF format (PC File, Foxpro, Access, dBASE, etc.). An additional user screen view is provided for use with PC File 7.0 in the Kentucky County Extension offices.
The surveys were funded by a grant from the Extension Service, United States Department of Agriculture Special Project funds for Pesticide Impact Assessment. Information from pesticide dealers was obtained through cooperation with the Division of Pesticides, Kentucky Department of Agriculture.
The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) of 1947 required that all pesticides distributed or sold in interstate commerce be federally registered and labeled in accordance with FIFRA's requisites. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)administered the registration program. In 1970, the President transferred the authority,responsibility, and personnel for both registration and establishment of tolerances to the newly established Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The USDA's role was in registering pesticides to ensure they were effective and would not cause acute injury.
In 1972, Congress enacted an amendment to FIFRA requiring that EPA reassess the risks of all registered pesticides in accordance with current scientific standards. EPA is to reregister a pesticide in order to continue its use only if the adverse effects are not unreasonable when compared to the benefits. FIFRA allows registered pesticides to remain on the market pending a reassessment by the EPA if registrants take appropriate steps to provide new data that EPA requires for the assessment. FIFRA also requires EPA to complete its reassessments as soon as possible, but to give priority to pesticides used on food crops.
Reassessing the pesticide risk is an enormous task for the EPA that will continue into the 21st century. A pesticide's potential for causing chronic human health effects depends upon its chronic toxicity, which is difficult to accurately determine, and the extent to which humans are exposed to the chemical. FIFRA requires the EPA to consider not only the risks posed by a pesticide, but also the economic, social, health, and environmental costs and benefits. Often, the most effective defense against a serious pest will be the use of a specific pesticide. The risk posed by the use of the pesticide must be weighed against economic and social benefits derived from its use. The National Agricultural Pesticide Impact Assessment Program (NAPIAP) was formed in 1976 as a cooperative, multi-agency effort to accomplish the benefits assessment requirements. A primary goal of the program was to establish a comprehensive national system to gather data on pesticide use.
Annual summary reports of survey results are available from the Department of Entomology,University of Kentucky:
If interested, contact Dr. Monte Johnson, Project Director, S-225 Agricultural Science Center North, Department of Entomology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40546-0091.
Click here to download the database file (KPUSTOT.DBF). Save it to disk, then use any database management software (e.g. dBASE, FoxPro, Access, PC File, etc.) that can import a dBASE-compatible database.
Click here to download the PC File 7.0 database header file (KPUSTOT.DBH). This file is necessary only if you plan to use PC File 7.0 software to view the database.
Following are a series of tips and suggestions for using PC-File 7.0 to extract information from the Kentucky Pesticide Use database to answer your own questions. Obviously, we cannot reproduce the PC-File 7.0 user manual, so we assume that you will have that available to use when actually framing your search, sort, or report. We are merely attempting to give you a few examples of the types of questions that could be asked of the database and how to get started answering them.
It will help to be familiar with the fields contained in the Kentucky Pesticide Use database and the range of entries possible for each field. The following table lists each actual database field name, the type of field it is (numeric, character string, logical, etc.), and the maximum length of the field (useful for constructing report forms). By selecting the highlighted field name, a list of the values possible for that field will be displayed. These values may be useful in constructing your search commands.
| Field Name | Type | Width |
|---|---|---|
| YEAR | Character | 4 |
| COUNTY | Character | 14 |
| DISTRICT | Character | 1 |
| CROP | Character | 15 |
| PESTTYPE | Character | 10 |
| PESTCODE | Character | 35 |
| NUMAPPLIC | Numeric | 22 |
| APPLTIMING | Character | 2 |
| APPLMETHOD | Character | 30 |
| RATE | Numeric | 6 |
| RATEUNIT | Character | 7 |
| ALTMETHOD1 | Character | 40 |
| ALTMETHOD2 | Character | 40 |
| MANEFFECT | Character | 30 |
| COSTEFFECT | Character | 20 |
PC File 7.0 allows searching using a variety of techniques including fill-in-the-blank, search statements, global word searches, wildcards, and comparison searches. A typical question that might arise in a county extension office might be
"What were the pesticides applied on corn in 1990 in our county?"
One way to find all the records that would pertain to this question, would be to fill in the Crop field with "CORN", the year field with "1990" and the county field with the name of the particular county. The search would then find all records that matched these three criteria.
If one wished to know
"What were the pesticides applied on corn in 1990 in our county and surrounding counties?"
one would need to use the more complex Formula Search since the phrasing of this question includes the use of OR (COUNTY= "County A" OR COUNTY="County B" OR COUNTY="County C" AND CROP="CORN" AND YEAR = "1990", or using PC File's logical operators: (COUNTY = "County A" | COUNTY= "County B" | COUNTY = "County C") & (CROP = "CORN" & YEAR = "1990")). Formula Searches must be also used for searches that involve a calculation or comparison. For example, the question
"In which counties was Atrazine applied to corn more than twice in the season?"
would result in a search command like this: CROP = "CORN" AND PESTICIDE= "ATRAZINE" AND NUMAPPLIC > 2 (using PC File's logical operators: CROP = "CORN" & PESTICIDE = "ATRAZINE" & NUMAPPLIC > 2).
Sorting is usually accomplished by creating indexes. An index is based on a field or a logical expression (like those used in Formula Searches), that causes the data to appear to be sorted according to the contents of that field or expression. For example, an index based on the COUNTY field, would cause all the records to appear sorted in ascending alphabetical order by county (i.e., starting with Adair County and ending with Woodford County).
Data can be sorted on more than one criterion by using logical expressions; for example, you might wish to sort the data by crop within county or by pesticide within crop within county so that records pertaining to each category are grouped together.More than one index can be created for a given database, so it is possible to quickly order the database in different ways without physically moving the records in the database.
To print out information from the database, you will probably need to create one or more reports. A report form allows you to organize the data on the page in way that makes sense to you. It also allows you to examine only the data that interests you. PC File 7.0 provides a number of different report formats to choose from, as well as a free-form format that allows you to place fields and additional text on the page in any arrangement you wish.
You may find that organizing the data by using an index first makes the report more useful, or you may wish to use only a subset of the data, previously located by doing a search. The manual and the software itself will lead you through the steps in creating your own report forms.
University of Kentucky Department of Entomology
This page is maintained by Pat Dillon, Department of Entomology, University of Kentucky.
Please send questions or suggestions to:
pdillon@ca.uky.edu
Original document: 10 April 1996
Last updated: 16 April 1996
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