There are three key factors that make
pesticides special; the fact that they are chemicals designed to be toxic,
they are intentionally introduced into the environment, and their variety.
With somewhere in the region of 1000 pesticide active ingredients currently in
use around the world it is an enormous task to maintain up to date information
about all their uses, toxicity and environmental effects. Add to this the
difficulty in obtaining information on some aspects of the pesticides, and the
gaps in the available data, and the task is made even more daunting.
Nevertheless, many attempts at producing this information
for a variety of audiences have been made. Reference manuals, books,
pamphlets, data sheets and more recently electronic databases, bulletin boards
and Internet sites to those who can afford them, know how to access them and
have the technology to reach them.
Is the printed page 'outmodemed'?
Books can contain a great deal of useful
information, they are generally easy to use and most are relatively cheap.
However, books cannot be easily updated unless a new edition is published;
this can render an entire volume out of date as new data on even a few active
ingredients is made available. Some of those which are well thumbed at the
Pesticides Trust [now PAN UK] include:
The Pesticide Manual(1) contains brief data sheets
on all active ingredients with key information on the chemistry, uses,
toxicity and environmental effects of the chemical. Data is presented in a
technical format which requires some understanding to interpret, and is
explained in a guide at the front of the volume.
Andrew Watterson's Pesticide Users’ Health and Safety
Handbook(2), is similar to The Pesticide Manual in that it consists
of data sheets on active ingredients, but the data is derived from a much
wider range of sources. While The Pesticide Manual tends to use only
industry data, Watterson has looked at US EPA, WHO, UNEP, and other national
and international data as well as scientific papers on health effects.
Unfortunately this book is now eight years old and has not been updated, and
contains data sheets only for 202 active ingredients.
More accessible data for the lay person is available in Pesticides
Policies and People(3), The Pesticides Handbook(4), and P is for
Pesticides(5), These give a textual background to the issues relating to
pesticides, health, and the environment and some tabulated data about the
pesticide groups and some of the more widely used active ingredients.
In the UK, two annual publications provide basic
information about which pesticides are approved for use, and the conditions
under which they may be used. These are Pesticides—Reference book 500(6),
and The UK Pesticides Guide(7).
More detailed information about individual active
ingredients and some pesticide groups such as carbamates is produced in a
series of pamphlets in the Environmental Health Criteria series. These are a
product of the International Programme on Chemical Safety of WHO.
Data sheets
Data sheets have the advantage of being brief,
usually free and focused on a single topic. Data sheets on individual active
ingredients are produced by several sources and available in several
formats.
The US-EPA produced pesticide fact sheets until the late
eighties but has since limited this service. They were made freely available
in printed form and have now been incorporated into a database sold
commercially by Lewis publishers. WHO also publishes data sheets which are
available from their headquarters in Geneva. In the UK, MAFF published data
sheets on some active ingredients but these hold little more information than
is available through annual publications mentioned above. Much more detailed
evaluation documents are available for some active ingredients.
Unofficial data sheets have been produced by a number of
organisations. The Journal of Pesticide Reform published by the North
West Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides in Oregon, US publishes well
researched profiles of some chemicals. Pesticides News also
regularly profiles active ingredients of particular concern. The most
comprehensive range of detailed, easy to use and well informed data sheets
from a non-government source are those produced by Extoxnet; a service
provided by a coalition of four US universities. These need to be accessed via
the Internet either by using a browser to point to http://www.oes.orst.edu:70/1/ext,
but this is extremely slow, or by requesting that the datasheets be sent by
Email from almanac@sulaco.oes.orst.edu.
Technology information
Computers play an increasingly important role in the
storage and retrieval of information of all types. Data relating to all
aspects of pesticides are no exception. There are increasing numbers of
databases sold for use on stand-alone computers, while on-line databases and
other information sources which can be interrogated from remote sites are also
proliferating. The latest addition to the range of information products and
services are Internet sites which provide a graphic and easy to use format for
accessing information.
Databases can hold massive quantities of data which can be
quickly accessed even by relative novices on computers. They can be updated as
frequently as resources allow and the data is readily transportable on small
diskettes or CDs. Reproduction of the data is cheap and easy, but its
collection and the development of databases can be extremely costly in both
money and time.
Among the databases available for sale are those containing
market information such as Agricultural Information Service’s
database of pests, crops, pesticides and usage by country(8) which can be
purchased in its entirety for £33,000 or pre-specified blocks of data can be
purchased more cheaply. Commercial databases of technical and commercial data
about pesticides are also available such as Agribase ‘96, marketed by
Enigma Marketing Research at £2,450(9).
These databases, while useful in the broader understanding
of the pesticides industry world, provide little or no information about the
health and environmental effects of the chemicals. This is the type of data to
which organisations such as the Pesticides Trust need constant access.
Fortunately a number of sources of such data are available at much lower cost
than the commercial data.
The International Register for Potentially Toxic Chemicals
(IRPTC) maintains a database of toxicity, environmental, technical and legal
data on all potentially harmful chemicals including pesticides(10). This is
part of an information service provided primarily for developing countries in
order to assist in the management of toxic chemicals. The main IRPTC Databank
is available on line via any Internet service provider, or it can be purchased
in PC format for US$100, and 80 Mb of hard disk space are needed to store the
whole database.
Another database aimed at developing countries and focusing
on the hazards of pesticides is the Database on Pesticides and the
Environment produced by the French development agency CIRAD(11). This
incorporates data from various sources including WHO, US-EPA, FAO and others
to produce a compact library of information on each active ingredient. The
database also includes information about products and suppliers in the
countries at which it is targeted. The version available at present is for
S.E. Asia, but this is currently under expansion and an African database is in
advanced development.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) also
provides some data on disk such as the maximum residue limits for pesticides
in food products as determined by the Codex Alimentarius, and the Agrostat
database of world agricultural statistics which includes some usage data on
pesticides in general(12).
Other than straightforward data about pesticides it is
possible and often useful to discover what scientific work has been carried
out on particular pesticides, pests, crops or other areas related to the use
of pesticides. Bibliographic databases are available both on-line and to
purchase which contain abstracts of journal articles which can be called up
using key words. Probably one of the best known and most comprehensive of
these is CABPESTCD produced by CABI(13). This is available for access
on-line through most internet service providers, and is sold in CD-ROM format.
Surfing for pesticides data
Internet service providers such as GreenNet and
Poptel which many environmental NGOs in the UK use, also provide access to
many remote databases which hold useful information. The PESTIS database which
incorporates articles and information from several US NGOs and the Pesticides
Trust(14). Other examples of databases include Agricola from the US
National Agricultural Library, Agris from FAO, Chemical Safety
Newsbase from the Royal Society of Chemistry and Tropical
Agriculture from KIT-Netherlands. There are many more and skill is
required in interrogating these remote databases efficiently and effectively
to save both money and time.
Bulletin boards or conferences are also useful in accessing
a wide audience which is interested in a particular topic area. These exist
for every topic imaginable including several which deal specifically with
pesticides hazards such as haz.pesticides and PANUPS (Pesticide Action
Network Update Service)(15).
On-line information centres have also been developed which
provide a range of integrated services such as bulletin board, database, a
journal, useful contacts lists and technical information. Examples of these
are IPMNet (16) and DISCUS (17) both of which provide
information about integrated pest management.
So far I have mentioned a range of services available via
the internet which require nothing more than a fairly basic computer and
modem, basic communications software and a subscription with a service
provider. The advent of cheap powerful computers, very fast modems and
sophisticated software with graphics capability has opened up a world of
information which is easy to use and which is virtually endless. The World
Wide Web (WWW) is a network of information held on computers as vast as the US
Defence Department’s or as small as a domestic PC. Much of the information
is free, and moving through the Web, or ‘surfing the net’ requires only
the use of a mouse.
WWW information sites are given addresses such as www.igc.apc.org/panna
which can be specified in the software as a location you wish to go to. Each
location will contain information and will include highlighted words or icons
which, when clicked will take you to another relevant site. However, from our
experience there are two major drawbacks to accessing information in this way:
The first is that it can be extremely slow; the graphics are attractive but
take time and computer power to manage. The second problem is that because
much of the information is free, it is of limited interest; much of it is
superficial and not useful for serious research. The sites which tend to be of
most interest can generally be accessed without graphics capability which is
much faster. Some of the Web pages which are relevant to pesticides issues are
listed in the current edition of Current Research Monitor.
With such vast amounts of data available who could want for
more. Yet ironically, in this era of the information revolution, much of the
data the Pesticides Trust as an organisation would like to obtain remains
obscure or entirely unobtainable. Much industry data remains secret, some
government data remains behind lock and key, and a great deal, simply does not
exist.
References
1. The Pesticide Manual, Tenth Edition, Ed. Clive Thomlin, British Crop Protection Council (BCPC), Royal Soc. Chem., 1994.
2. Pesticide users’ health and safety handbook, Andrew Watterson, Gower Technical 1988.
3. Pesticides Policies and People, Peter Beaumont, The Pesticides Trust [now PAN UK], 1993.
4. The Pesticides Handbook, Peter Hurst, Alastair Hay and Nigel Dudley, Journeyman 1991.
5. P is for Pesticides, Dr Tim Lang and Dr Charlie Clutterbuck with The Pesticides Trust, Ebury Press, 1991 (Out of print).
6. Reference book 500—Pesticides, MAFF + HSE, HMSO (every year).
7. The UK Pesticides Guide, CABI + BCPC (every year).
8. Agricultural Information Services, Tel. +44 (0)171 371 9072.
9. Agribase ’96, marketed by Enigma Marketing Research Tel. +44 (0)1477 544056.
10. International Register for Potentially Toxic Chemicals (IRPTC), Case Postale 356, CH-1219 Châtelaine, Genève, Switzerland. Tel. +41 22 758 2506.
11. Database on Pesticides and the Environment—CIRAD: POBox 5035, 34032 Montpellier Cedex 1, France. Tel. +33 67 61 59 34.
12. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), GIP Division. Tel. +39 6 522 52689, Fax +39 6 522 55649: Internet: http://www.fao.org/
13. CABPESTCD, CABInternational, Wallingford, Oxon OX10 8DE, UK. Tel. +44 491 832111.
14. PESTIS—http://www.igc.apc.org/panna/pestis.html
15. PANUPS (Pesticide Action Network Update Service) PAN North America Regional Centre,116 New Montgomery Street, #810, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA, Tel. +1 415 541-9140, Fax +1 415 541-9253, Email: panna@panna.org
16. IPMNet—open cicp.biochem.vt.edu
17. DISCUS—open discus.dante.net
[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 31,March 1996, pages 8-9]