Hydrolytic and Photochemical Degradation of Organophosphorus Pesticides

To keep pace with demands for increasing food supplies to satisfy the expanding world population, modern agriculture has utilized the latest scientific and technological knowledge available. Increases in crop production through the use of growth regulators, fertilizers , herbicides, and insecticides have been little short of phenomenal, and drugs, feed additives, and higher-quality grain and forage have dramatically increased livestock production. But, as is usually the case, this progress has been accompanied by problems, one of the more serious being contamination of our environment by chemicals. Only in recent years have the full effects of these pollutants on the ecological balance of nature begun to be understood in all the intricacies and implications.