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Proliferating pest problems, sharply rising pest control costs, increasing environmental pollution, rising rates of injury and death due to pesticide poisoning, and burgeoning pesticide‐related legal entanglements leave little doubt in the minds of most citizens that a crisis in chemical pest control exists. The underlying cause of today's pesticide dilemma lies in the lack of ecological consideration given the synthesis, experimental development, registration and utilisation of newly developed synthetic pesticides. The production of synthetic organic pesticides increased from an estimated 464,000 pounds in 1951 to approximately 1.4 billion pounds in 1980. Increases in production were followed by the recognition that such increased use of synthetic chemicals would be accompanied by extensive human and environmental impact. With the rapid increase in the use of pesticides, there has been a corresponding increase in public attention and public concern about this impact on human health.

Quantifies the US Federal Government’s stance on pesticides and the prosecution of the laws governing their use. Discusses the Health and Society laws regarding pesticides and the use of agricultural chemicals. Concludes that the USA has much to thank pesticides for, but that they are also a threat to the health and safety of people and the environment, if used indiscriminately or without control.

The use of pesticides in food production has caused concern among many consumers. The formation and aims of an organisation, the Council for the Reduction of Pesticides (CROP), to review the use of pesticides, investigate alternatives, and to provide a link between government, the fruit and vegetable industry, and consumers is outlined.

Numerical literature shows that agricultural insurance can affect pesticide investments, but few of them are devoted to explain how agricultural insurance affects farmers’ selection on green or traditional pesticides. This paper aims to develop a theoretical model about how agricultural insurance influences on green pesticides selections and tests our conclusions by using the data from China land economic survey (CLES) from 2020 to 2021.

We employ probit model to capture the effects of agricultural insurance on green pesticides adoption.

We indicate that green pesticides have a stronger effect on stabilizing yield and increasing income than traditional pesticides, but there are still risks disturbing farmers’ decisions on green pesticides usage. By providing premium subsidies after the farmers are affected by natural risk, agricultural insurance improves the farmers’ expected income and encourages farmers to use green pesticides. Further, we further confirm these conclusions by considering different scenarios such as climate risks, farmers’ entrepreneurship and credit constraints. We find that the effects are more salient if croplands are under higher natural risks and, farmers are equipped with entrepreneurship and formal credit. This paper implies that the agricultural insurance decoupled with green technologies also have salient positive effects on agricultural pollution control.

The potential contributions of this paper can be outlined in three aspects in detail. Firstly, this paper aims to revel the effects of agricultural insurance on pesticide selection by structuring a general theoretical model. By using the CLES data from 2020 to 2021, we confirm that agricultural insurance increases the probability for adopting green pesticides. Secondly, this paper discusses the effects of farmers’ characteristics on the results and finds that if farmers have entrepreneurship, the effects of agricultural insurance on green pesticide usage will be more salient. Thirdly, it uncovers some practices in China, which will supply experiences for other developing countries. For example, this paper further demonstrates that “insurance + credit” plan the present Chinese government carried out will be an important measure for strengthening effects of agricultural insurance on green pesticides usage. Moreover, it shows that decouple agricultural policies will also guide farmers to use green technologies eventually if the technologies are reliable and farmers can afford.

The focus of this study was to evaluate the relationship between research publications in the pesticide field, a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP per capita. The study aims to analyze pesticide use in association with a country’s population and research publications. The purpose of this study is to uncover the country’s contribution to pesticide research and assess the financial resources allocated to it as a percentage of their GDP by exploring these factors.

The Web of Science database was used to retrieve data for the period of 2001–2020. The use of scientometric indicators allowed for the analysis of the collaborative patterns and active performance of countries in pesticide research. Socio-economic analysis was used to determine the contribution of countries toward pesticide research.

This study demonstrated a strong association (0.952%) between a country’s GDP and its research publications in the field of pesticide research. Countries, such as Denmark, Belgium and Australia, have benefited from global collaboration, which has enhanced their research efforts. Despite ranking lower in pesticide utilization, India focused on pesticide research, as indicated by its high publication/GDP per capita ratio (0.26).

Research on pesticides directly impacts agricultural practices, which, in turn, influence the economic production of the agricultural sector. Changes in pesticide usage can have inference for crop yields, food price and, eventually, the GDP. Comparative analysis can assist in evaluating the efficiency of regulatory policies in balancing ecological concerns with economic interests. Changes in regulations may impact both pesticide usage and economic outcomes.

This study contributes to the understanding of the health effects of pesticides exposure and of how pesticides have been and should be regulated.

This study presents literature reviews for the period 2000–2013 on (i) the health effects of pesticides and on (ii) preference valuation of health risks related to pesticides, as well as a discussion of the role of benefit-cost analysis applied to pesticide regulatory measures.

This study indicates that the health literature has focused on individuals with direct exposure to pesticides, i.e. farmers, while the literature on preference valuation has focused on those with indirect exposure, i.e. consumers. The discussion highlights the need to clarify the rationale for regulating pesticides, the role of risk perceptions in benefit-cost analysis, and the importance of inter-disciplinary research in this area.

This study relates findings of different disciplines (health, economics, public policy) regarding pesticides, and identifies gaps for future research.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate food supply chain stakeholders’ intention to use Industry 5.0 (I5.0) drones for cleaner production in food supply chains.

The authors used a quantitative research design and collected data using an online survey administered to a sample of 264 food supply chain stakeholders in Nigeria. The partial least square structural equation model was conducted to assess the research’s hypothesised relationships.

The authors provide empirical evidence to support the contributions of I5.0 drones for cleaner production. The findings showed that food supply chain stakeholders are more concerned with the use of I5.0 drones in specific operations, such as reducing plant diseases, which invariably enhances cleaner production. However, there is less inclination to drone adoption if the aim was pollution reduction, predicting seasonal output and addressing workers’ health and safety challenges. The findings outline the need for awareness to promote the use of drones for addressing workers’ hazard challenges and knowledge transfer on the potentials of I5.0 in emerging economies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to address I5.0 drones’ adoption using a sustainability model. The authors contribute to existing literature by extending the sustainability model to identify the contributions of drone use in promoting cleaner production through addressing specific system operations. This study addresses the gap by augmenting a sustainability model, suggesting that technology adoption for sustainability is motivated by curbing challenges categorised as drivers and mediators.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of government supervision and market environment on farmers' pesticide application behavior, as well as the intermediary effect of farmers' literacy, and investigate the substitution effect between government supervision and market environment.

In this paper, logit and Poisson regression models were used to investigate the comprehensive impact of government supervision and market environment on farmers' pesticide application behavior, and the intermediary effect model is used to examine the intermediary effect of farmers' literacy.

Government supervision is an important constraint for the formation of individual behavior paradigm, but it has both positive and negative effects, depending on different instruments. The market subject constraint and market incentive are two important ways that the market environment affects Chinese farmers' pesticide application behavior. Farmers' literacy plays a partial mediating role in the influencing mechanism of government and market factors. The government supervision and market environment, two different constraint forces, have substitution effects in the process of regulating farmers' pesticide application behavior.

In the influence mechanism, farmers' literacy, such as values, responsibilities and skill requirement related to scientific pesticide use, was included into the analysis framework as intermediary variables. The authors found that government supervision and market environment not only directly affect farmers' pesticide application behavior but also indirectly affect farmers' pesticide application behavior through farmers' literacy.

The quantitative understanding of the safe input management practices of vegetable producers is essential for both food safety and environmental protection. The purpose of this study is to investigate the current status of safe production in vegetable enterprises and examine the key risk factors affecting the safe production of vegetables from the perspective of agricultural inputs.

Based on the theory of risk analysis, a framework of safe vegetable production risk analysis is constructed from the perspective of production input behaviour. Based on 202 valid questionnaires in Beijing, China, this paper identifies direct risks in input management through statistical descriptive analysis; determines weights through an expert elicitation process and calculates weighted safety values accordingly; and finally uses a categorical regression model to explore the indirect risks affecting corporate safety production.

The results show that direct risk factors include seed treatment risk, pesticide and fertilizer use criteria risk, pesticide and fertilizer operation risk, and pesticide application object risk. The production safety value of Beijing's enterprises is found to be high in the north and south regions, and low in the central region. Finally, some indirect risk factors, namely the cognition of agricultural product safety laws, the cognition of pesticide safety intervals, the cognition of prohibited pesticides and the possession of brands, are found to have positive and significant impacts on the safe production behaviour of enterprises.

These findings provide entry points for interventions aimed at reducing dependence on pesticides and fertilizers and promoting input management for safe vegetable production in enterprises, thus avoiding vegetable safety incidents due to improper practices in the production chain.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate farmers’ intentions to comply with pesticide application standards based on an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB).

Built on a TPB framework, it was examined how perceived behavioural control (PBC), behavioural goal (BG), behavioural attitude (BA) and subjective norm (SN) influenced farmers’ intention to comply with pesticide application standards. Data of 986 farmers from five major agricultural provinces in China were collected following a stratified random sampling method. Structural equation modelling was employed for hypothesis testing and analysis.

The results showed that PBC, BG, behavioural attitude and SN had positive impacts on farmers’ intention in abiding by the standards. Among them in determining farmers’ intention towards compliance with pesticide application standards, farmers’ PBC was found to be the most influential factor, while SN was the least influential factor.

The results indicated that the traditional TPB constructs had significant correlations with farmers’ intention to comply with pesticide standards, demonstrating the applicability of the TPB in the understanding of farmers’ decision-making in a developing country context. It is suggested that psychological factors should be taken into consideration in studying farmers’ decision-making.