The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), passed in 1947, required that all pesticides distributed or sold in interstate commerce had to be registered and labelled federally. Responsibility for registration was first under the direction of the USDA, but once the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in 1970, it took over registration activities. In 1972, the scope of FIFRA was expanded, and the risks of all registered pesticides had to be reassessed, allowing reregistering only if the risk of a pesticide was not unreasonable when compared to the benefits of its use.
The National Agricultural Pesticide Impact Assessment Program (NAPIAP) was formed by the Secretary of Agriculture in October, 1976. NAPIAP is a cooperative unit, providing management and coordination of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and state activities. Nine USDA agencies have input into NAPIAP. These agencies interact with four regional coordinators, who oversee 53 state liaison representatives (SLRs), one from each state and territory. State Agricultural Experiment Stations, Cooperative Extension Services, and Departments of Agriculture can be involved in various programs.
NAPIAP is designed to provide the most accurate and objective data available for defining and evaluating the benefits of selected pesticides having uses in agriculture, forestry, or both. NAPIAP funds pesticide studies with special emphasis on areas of water contamination, application technology, pesticide use in conservation tillage, benefit analysis, drift, disposal, human exposure to pesticides, pesticide use surveys, resistance, and environmental effects. NAPIAP enlists the help of other agencies to assess and quantify the benefits of pesticides important to the state's agriculture, and to define what impact those pesticides will have on consumers, should the pesticides no longer be available for use by farmers and other applicators.
This comprehensive survey was conducted among certified agriculturally oriented commercial and private applicators.
This survey was conducted among commercial farmers, commercial agricultural pesticide applicators, and pesticide dealers and distributors.
This three-year pesticide use survey targeted Extension agents, Extension specialists, and researchers covering usage due to insects, weeds, and diseases on Kentucky's five major commodities: alfalfa, corn, soybeans, tobacco, and wheat. The Division of Pesticides, Kentucky Department of Agriculture cooperated on this project with surveys of pesticide sales by dealers.
The purpose of this survey was to determine pesticides most commonly used by Pest Control Operators (PCOs) and the commercial ornamental and turf industries. Date were compared and correlated with data from the ongoing annual survey of pesticide dealers by the Kentucky Division of Pesticides. In addition, a telephone survey was done to determine homeowner perceptions of pests and pesticide use.
The purpose of this survey was to gain an overall assessment of the agricultural benefits realized from the correct use of pesticides on 20 of the more important vegetable and fruit crops grown in Kentucky. Additional questions focused on Cooperative Extension Service pesticide programs and Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Other useful information presented in this report includes a listing of other recent state- or nationally-oriented vegetable/fruit pesticide use surveys, other publications such as recommendation bulletins, computer-oriented information such as mailgroups,' a table listing trade names, formulations, and common names of survey pesticides along with amounts sold in 1994 from the Kentucky Division of Pesticides survey, and a table listing average prices for fertilizers and pesticides.
University of Kentucky Department of Entomology
This page is maintained by Pat Dillon, Department of Entomology, University of Kentucky.
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pdillon@uky.edu
Original document: 19 August 1996
Last updated: 31 March 2003
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