REVIEW ARTICLE t Food Quality Protection Act launches search for pest management alternatives

Insecticides have long been impor-tant tools for California farmers to combat agricultural pests. By 1995, organophosphate (OP) insecticides such as chlorpyrifos, azinphos-methyl, methamidophos, phosmet and di-azinon accounted for an estimated 34 % of worldwide insecticide sales, and they are widely credited with allowing large yield increases in com-mercial agriculture. The U.S. Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), signed into law in 1996, established a new human health–based standard that “reasonable certainty of no harm wil