There is no question that synthetic chemical pesticides, which were introduced in the 1940s and are now used widely on agricultural crops, have their share of unintended consequences. Widespread evidence exists on pesticides adverse impacts on nontarget organisms like beneficial insects, birds, mammals, and even humans. Instead, the question is whether or not we have reached a fork in t the road -- a point where the secondary problems associated with pesticides have cut into the chemicals effectiveness, and a point where the social costs of using some chemical pesticides now outweigh their benefits. If we are at this fork, the problem becomes recognizing it and picking the correct path. The Consumers Union book Pest Management at the Crossroads is the work of lead author Charles Benbrook, the former executive director of the Board on Agriculture of the National Research Council (NRC), and four colleagues from Consumers Union and Mothers and Others for a Livable Planet.

At the books core (Chapters 2 and 3) is the thesis that our society is on a pesticide treadmill where aggregate risks have not declined despite the widespread use of new highly active, low dose pesticides and despite 25 years of pesticide regulation. The authors back up this startling claim by using the Environmental Protection Agency's previously unavailable datasets to estimate risk trends based on pesticide usage data and mammalian toxicity scores. Their analysis shows that there has been little overall reduction in the acute and chronic toxicity of all agricultural pesticides --insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides -- taken as a whole, from 1971 to the present. A decrease in the chronic toxicity of insecticides is one of the few individual success stories over this 25-year period. This type of trend analysis has not been previously attempted and, given the nature of the results, will likely be met with some skepticism. In hindsight, it would have been useful if these findings had first appeared in a peer-reviewed journal in order to establish their authenticity and pre-pre-empt the skeptics.

With the pesticide treadmill documented, the book moves on in Chapters 5, 6, and 7 to outline a solution: accelerated progress toward biointensive integrated pest management (IPM) to get off the treadmill. Here Benbrook and colleagues return IPM to its founding principles, which assert that biological controls can be manipulated to increase their effectiveness. and that (reduced risk) pesticides should only be used when natural control processes fail. This solution echoes the conclusions from a recent NRC book, Ecologically Based Pest Management: New Solutions for a New Century. However, the authors carry biointensive IPM a step farther by providing a working definition, which is then used as the basis for establishing a baseline and setting policy goals. Under this definition, only about 31% of cropland is currently managed under "High" or "Medium" biointensive IPM. Pest Management at the Crossroads proposes as a national policy that the cropland in biointensive IPM should double by the year 2000, that 75% should be in "High" or "Medium" by 2010, and that essentially all of American agriculture should be in "High" IPM by 2020.

Realistically, can these goals be met? To do so would at the very least require a reorganized research and education infrastructure, a breakdown of institutional barriers, and a coordinated public-private partnership to lead the way in promoting biointensive IPM, not pesticide use. This is the policy prescription, or road map, that Pest Management at the Crossroads suggests in Chapter 9. For example, the book suggests that current efforts like the U.S. General Service Administration's indoor and urban IPM program or the Campbell Soup Company's program for minimizing pesticide use by its contract growers be used as models. It also suggests that consumer demand may help lead the way if products could be marketed under an easy to understand "IPM-grown" label, or if large retail enterprises like Pizza Hut were to announce that they will buy only IPM-grown tomatoes for their tomato sauce.

Building a biointensive IPM infrastructure will require a great deal of information exchange and outreach. Surely the information superhighway will help. To this end Pest Management at the Crossroads lists 44 World Wide Web addresses that contain information on pests, pesticides, pesticide alternative, and agricultural policy. These sites, which include such diverse entities as Pesticide Action Network North America, the American Crop Protection Association, and the Pesticide Properties Database are sprinkled throughout the text.

Pest Management at the Crossroads takes a bolder position than NRC's Ecologically Based Pest Management. For example, both describe elements of USDA's boll weevil eradication program, but they leave the reader with two different conclusions. The NRC book stresses the success of the eradication program when used in conjunction with IPM (it cites as evidence the 1994 Georgia cotton crop, which was the highest since 1935), in contrast, Pest Management at the Crossroads stresses the failure of the eradication program when used without IPM practices (it cites as evidence the Texas cotton crop failure following the 1995 approval of a new eradication zone in the Lower Rio Grande). It is more critical of the eradication program, yet like the NRC book it is well supported with plenty of references and documented evidence.

Pest Management at the Crossroads is packed with information, yet still manages to present its case in an understandable and well-organized framework. It contains an executive summary and nine chapters, each clearly outlined with headings, subheadings, and bullets for key points. The text is full (perhaps a little too full) of pictures, figures, graphs, tables, and pull-out quotes. Overall, Pest Management at the Crossroads might be the best book available for learning about pest control, pesticide risks, IPM, and pest-management policy.