As part of both surveys, questions will also evaluate private market delivery of this type of environmental risk assessment service. This project will expand upon these efforts by providing a prototype for a crop-specific environmental risk assessment that enables producers to identify pollution risks associated with pesticides on their property. These crop-specific assessments are part of a system that goes beyond traditional education programs to promote actions that prevent pollution. Prevention avoids the complications involved in remediating pesticide contamination. In the case of groundwater polluted by one or more pesticides, cleanups are complicated, time-consuming, expensive and often infeasible.
Pollution prevention is a particularly useful approach in agriculture.
With emphasis on site-specific analysis, prevention techniques can account for the variables that alter pollution risks from one farm to the next. These variables include different climates, soil conditions, cropping patterns, and farming methods. This environmental risk assessment tool is an important step in adapting pollution prevention techniques to agriculture. It has a national network with program capacity in all states. The system of education, self-assessment and action plans leads producers toward voluntary action.