[01] Muhammad Sarwar, Nuclear Institute for Agriculture & Biology (NIAB), Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan.

This article explores the widespread use of insecticides in agriculture and compares the benefits and problems associated with these helpful but dangerous chemicals. Agriculture is practiced in the world from the earliest history of mankind and even now there are several agrarian countries where the economy is mainly dependent on agriculture. The basic aim of agriculture is to produce sufficient food for the growing population and fodder for cattle, and also to provide agricultural products for global and local trades besides maintaining of buffer stock of food for emergent situations. Plants in the garden or landscape are under constant competition with insects, animals and diseases that use the plants as a host or source of nutrition. This is the reason that farmers and gardeners turn to pesticides to control these competitors. Pesticides include organic forms of pest control, but also are synthetic control options known as conventional pesticides. Insecticides are chemicals used worldwide to manage agricultural pests on plants. These kill and repel unwanted pests, but also cause many human deaths each year. Since the late some decades, Entomologists and Chemists have made outstanding progress in the technology of pest control. Today's the store of weapons is large and diverse, encompassing legal, cultural, physical, genetic, and biological tactics, in addition to the well-known chemical pesticides. This is a most common method of pest control by the use of insecticides, these are chemicals that either kill pests or inhibit their development. Pesticides are often classified according to the pest they are intended to control. For instance, insecticides are used to control insects, herbicides to control plants, fungicides for fungi, rodenticides for rodents, avicides for birds, and bactericides manage bacteria. A perfect insecticide should have high toxicity to target pest, selective toxicity to beneficial insects, low toxicity to plants and other non-target organisms, no harmful residue, cheap and safe to manufacture, stabile under storage, non-corrosive and residues readily and cheaply detectable. Hence, compared to other forms of control, insecticide use is highly effective, easily employed by farmers and in many cases there is no commercially viable alternative. The wise use of insecticide depends on public awareness of long-term health and environmental hazards, and to contact with an expert for help in identifying pest and disease problems, which in turn, give crop owners with some control over protecting their environment.

Pesticide, Environment, Agriculture, Crops, Livestock, Economic Threshold, Public Health

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Effects of different flours on the biology of the pry Tyrophagus putrescentiae (Schrank) (Acarina: Acaridae) and the predator Neoseiulus pseudolongispinosus (Xin, Liang and Ke) (Acari: Phytoseiidae). International Journal of Acarology, 36 (5): 363-369. [34] Sarwar, M., Xuenong, X. and Kongming, W. 2012. Suitability of webworm Loxostege sticticalis L. (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) eggs for consumption by immature and adults of the predatory mite Neoseiulus pseudolongispinosus (Xin, Liang and Ke) (Acarina: Phytoseiidae). Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research, 10 (3): 786-793.