Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2016
Pesticides help to protect man, plants, animals, structures and various goods from injury, disease or destruction. They maintain and improve our food supply and public health. In some cases, actual economic survival is dependent upon these chemicals.
Although biological and integrated control play an important role in our overall control of pests, we must still rely, to a large extent, upon chemicals to control or suppress the majority of pests. Although there are other methods of controlling insects and pests by biological and physical means, the object is to prevent pest damage of economic significance by the most compatible, acceptable, efficient and economic method.
At the present time, this means chemicals, and in many cases, the rapid application to match an insect invasion, a vector-borne disease outbreak or application in inaccessable areas requires aircraft to apply them.