Overview of what will be covered
editPesticides are widely used to protect plants from insects, diseases, and weeds, putting them in direct contact with soil and the food that we eat. They undergo numerous pathways where they get converted into other chemical residues, which can seep into and contaminate water supplies, become more concentrated in the environment, and can persist on food products.
I will be attempting to bring the current wikipedia page on pesticide residue up to date with information on: the types of pesticides that are most widely used, the compounds they get converted to, the pathways that they take through the environment, and how humans and wild-life come into contact with them. There are implications that pesticide residues play a role in human neurological disease, as well as causing some forms of cancer, so I will be discussing some of the adverse effects of pesticide residue on human health.
I will also attempt to cover the various assessment methods that are being used to quantify the amounts of chemical residues on food as well as in our water supplies, and discuss their limitations and areas available for improvement. There are also a number of ideas out there concerning the reduction of these chemical residues in our environment, such as: switching to cropping systems that are less dependent on pesticides, development of new pesticides, and the improvement of existing ones to reduce their deleterious effects on the environment and on our health.
Information will be obtained from secondary review papers, current articles, and books written on the topic.