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While the fruits of farming are everyone's
business, hardly anyone in the United States is in the business
of farming. There is no country whose people are more free from
the toil of raising their own food. And there is no food supply
in the world that is more abundant, affordable or safe than in the
United States.
What makes U.S. agriculture the best?
The constant pursuit to become better – a pursuit by producers,
processors, agribusiness, government and agricultural educators
and researchers.
In the research and education arena
alone, hundreds of endeavors are documented in a searchable database
entitled, Agricultural
Science & Education Impact, updated annually by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Among the reports are those dealing
with pest management. They reveal a transition in progress ... from
a post-World War II reliance on long-acting, nonselective pesticides
to an integrated use of multiple pest control methods, including
safer, shorter-acting, selective pesticides. As science enables
us to better detect the environmental and health effects of pest
control practices, agriculture responds to improve its methods.
Here are some examples of this progress.
1997
1998
for Starters ;
More
from 1998 ;
1999
The present state of agriculture is
a state of transition ... to make the best better. To facilitate
such transition is the goal of the USDA Office of Pest Management
Policy and the opportunity of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act.
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