CPRI: Archives

CPRI Image & Poster Library

Through the course of its research and outreach, CPRI collects and produces many photographs, micrographs, maps, posters, and images that illustrate our work and give audiences a more vivid understanding of pest management than words alone. Please click here to be taken to CPRI's Image & Poster Library.

CPRI Print Archives

CPRI staff frequently use historical documents in conducting their research. These documents are often difficult to find or unavailable in libraries or on the internet. In the interest of making this information generally available, CPRI will periodically scan and electronically post these documents.

This effort continues an archival effort begun at the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy. There Leonard Gianessi and Nicole Mosz scanned 11,162 pages from 244 historical pesticide use reports. These reports can be accessed at the North Carolina State University, Center for Integrated Pest Management at http://cipm.ncsu.edu/piappud/.

• Chemicals in Food Production, Groggins, Phillip H., U.S. War Foods Administration, 1945. From the Nineteenth Annual Priestly Lectures, sponsored by Phi Lambda Upsilon Honorary Chemical Society, The Pennsylvania State College, State College, Pa. (124 pages)
  Groggins reviews use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides required to sustain U.S. agricultural production and food processing in the United States during World War II. The study quantifies chemical use on major crops and livestock and projects future requirements.

• Measuring the Economic Impacts of Pesticide Regulation: Thirty-one Case Studies, L.P. Gianessi, National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, 1999. (198 pages)
  Gianessi's report, published under contract from Resources For the Future and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, provides ex-post analysis of the costs and benefits of EPA regulation with respect to 21 active ingredients used on 29 crops.

• The Present Status of Chemicals Used to Control Diseases of Edible Fruits and Vegetables in the United States (Fungicides, Bactericides, Nematicides), American Phytopathological Society report before the Administrator of the Federal Security Administration, January 24, 1950. (131 pages)
  "The evidence presented herein clearly demonstrates that many of our fruit and vegetable crops cannot be produced economically, efficiently and in reliable volume without chemical protection from fungous, bacterial, and nematode parasites. To deny our agriculturists this safeguard would be to jeopardize the stability of our agricultural economy and the sound nourishment of our people. Uninhibited plant diseases would eliminate all possibility of planned production in apples, potatoes, tomatoes, peaches, and many other major crops."
  p. 127
  
• Contemporary Control of Plant Diseases with Chemicals: Present Status, Future Prospects, and Proposal for Action, American Phytopathological Society report to the Environmental Protection Agency, June, 1979. (160 pages)
  "The crippling of our chemical control technology by over-regulation is a question of genuine concern. This is of critical interest to plant pathologists because the control of many plant diseases now and for the foreseeable future is almost totally dependent upon chemical controls." p. 6

Presentation Archives
As part of its mission to further understanding of and disseminate information about agricultural pest management, CPRI often hosts guests speakers, seminars and workshops. When possible, we will post materials from these presentations for free and public access.

The Relationship Between Healthy Diet and Pesticide Availability and Use Dr. Nancy Lewis, University of Neberaska
8-9-05
—Lewis, Nancy M., and Jamie Rudd, Blueberries in the American Diet, Nutrition Today, Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 92, March/April, 2005.
—Lewis, Nancy, and Jamie Rudd, Apples in the American Diet, Nutrition in Clinical Care, Vol. 7, No. 2, p. 82, 2004.

CPRI Quotes of Note
12-15-04
It is universally recognized that the greatest difficulty in organic crop production is weed control. With no cost-effective herbicides permitted for use in organic production systems, organic farmers are left to rely upon tillage, cover crops, weed flaming, and, above all else, farm labor to control weeds and avoid the yield losses they cause.

In the future as many as 1,000 acres of prison farms throughout Iowa may be converted to organic crops..."This is perfect for prisons," (Deputy Iowa Corrections Director Roger) Baysden said. "What I have got is labor, and I can save money on the chemical side by putting inmates to work with hoes. That is what the public really wants to see anyway."

"Prison Farm Going Organic; Inmates Tend Crops without Chemicals," Des Moines Register, July 19, 2004.

10-14-04
In discussing his experiences growing up on a peanut farm in Georgia former President Jimmy Carter remembers his family's efforts to control weeds...

"Depending entirely on draft animals and hand labor, small variations in the rain pattern were devastating...The first week or two without rain was not particularly deplored, and was not even mentioned in Sunday-morning prayers in church. The dry ground permitted the mule-drawn plows and hoes to restrain the ever-encroaching weeds and grass."

"However, when no plowing was possible because of several successive days of rain, the noxious plants were uncontrollable. Something like the terrible creeping and oozing things in horror movies, Bermuda grass, coffeeweed, cocklebur, Johnsongrass, beggar-lice, and nut grass would emerge from what had been a clearly cultivated field, and in a few days our entire crop of young peanuts and cotton could be submerged in a sea of weeds. Often, despite the most heroic efforts by the best farmers, parts of the crop would have to be abandoned. Although partially salvaged, the remaining young plants were heavily damaged by the aggressive plowing and hoeing. During these rainy times, Daddy would pace at night, scan the western skies for a break in the clouds, and scour the community, often far from our own farm, to recruit any person willing to hoe or pull up weeds for day wages."

Carter, Jimmy, An Hour Before Daylight, New York, Touchstone Books, Simon & Schuster Publishing, p. 200, 2001.