Pesticides

Both in the United States and abroad, public concern has increased over the potential health and environmental effects of pesticides. Some of this concern is linked to expanding world agricultural trade and the movement of agricultural products among nations. The regulations governing pesticide use have become issues of international importance, particularly in light of recent efforts to harmonize them. This report examines the pesticide standards and regulations among nations that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and compares them with those of the United States. For each country, GAO reviews the (1) types of experimental test data required to register food-use pesticides, (2) organizational structures in place to evaluate pesticides, (3) risk assessment and risk management procedures being used, and (4) measures used to enforce pesticide standards.

GAO found that: (1) the OECD nations' pesticide standards and regulations agree with U.S. requirements for assessing human health effects of food-use pesticides, but specific test methodologies vary; (2) there is less agreement among OECD nations and the United States on the required tests to measure the impact of pesticides on the environment and wildlife; (3) the European Economic Community (EEC) is revising its test requirements to bring them into greater harmony with U.S. pesticide registration standards; (4) several OECD nations are willing to accept test data generated according to OECD, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and other international organization guidelines; (5) industry officials believe that OECD has achieved harmonization of data requirements, but requirements for data presentation differ; (6) the OECD nations' technical resources and organizational structures for evaluating test data vary widely and do not correlate with the quantity of pesticides used; (7) the United States and OECD nations use different evaluation procedures for health risk assessments; (8) many OECD nations review product efficacy data to reduce the quantity of pesticides used, whereas the United States relies on market forces to minimize pesticide use; (9) many OECD nations have initiated pesticide reregistration programs; (10) OECD nations' pesticide monitoring tends to focus on imported-food testing, with less emphasis given to exported food and domestically grown and consumed foods; and (11) many OECD nations will accept other residue standards if no national standard exists.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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