News from CRIS: Trace Contaminants & Residues - Pesticides

July 21, 2020

What is a pesticide?

A pesticide is a broad term used to describe natural and synthetic chemicals (remember everything is a chemical!) that can harm or kill organisms, including insects, invasive weeds, fungi, rodents, bacteria, and more.

What is a pesticide’s purpose?

Pesticides have a wide range of purposes. While they are most commonly associated with agricultural use in the prevention of weeds, insects, and more, we also use pesticides in our daily lives.

Disinfectant cleaning products, such as bleach, are pesticides because they kill organisms like bacteria. Home-use insect control products, such as wasp and hornet killer, are also pesticides because they kill insects.

In this post, we’re going to focus on pesticides in agricultural use, but it’s important to note that we safely use pesticides regularly.

...

Read the entire blog post at: https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/trace-contaminants-residues-pesticides.