抄録
The world population is now 7.2 billion and is still growing rapidly, with expectation that it will reach more than 9 billion by 2050. To support this huge population, food production must be stepped up and pesticides will presumably have an important role in increasing yields of agricultural products. In fact, their application has been shown to improve crop yields and thus the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables, thereby contributing to the support of human and animal lives. However, pesticides have the potential to exhibit adverse effects on human and/or environmental health, although these will generally depend on dose levels. Therefore, the governments in many countries have instituted regulatory controls over pesticide use to minimize exposure of the general population to residues in foodstuffs. Regulatory agencies such as the US EPA, Japanese MAFF and OECD have established Test Guidelines for conducting various safety studies on toxicology, residues, and environmental dynamics of pesticides for human and environmental risk assessment before their registration. Current safety testing of pesticides includes a wide variety of toxicology studies in animals, metabolism studies in animals and plants, and residue analyses in crops and soil. All resultant data are submitted to the regulatory agencies and subjected to appropriate risk assessment and risk management. In Japan, such risk assessment is currently conducted by the Food Safety Commission while risk management is performed by the relevant regulatory agency in compliance with the Agricultural Chemicals Control Act, Food Sanitation Act, Food Safety Basic Act, Basic Environment Act, and Chemical Substance Control Act.
