**Author details**

Mamta Choudhary1 \*, Binod Kumar Choudhary1 and Ratan Chandra Ghosh2

1 ICAR-National Institute of Biotic Stress Management, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India

2 Department of Veterinary Pathology, Chhattisgarh Kamdhenu University, Durg, India

\*Address all correspondence to<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


**1. Introduction**

The history of integrated pest management in soybeans in Brazil is linked to the changing concept in pest control that occurred in the 1960s, a period when the world was alerted to the dangers of abusive use of pesticides [1, 2]. This fact prompted government policies to reduce the use of these chemicals through incentives for the adoption of integrated pest management programs in different crops. It was then that the concept of integrated management began to be popularized and is now considered a major technological breakthrough. As it is common

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

knowledge, the IPM aims at integrating various management tactics instead of relying on the control by the exclusive use of insecticides [3]. Its concept essentially consists of a decisionmaking process involving the coordinated use of multiple tactics to optimize the control of all classes of pests in a sustainable and economically compatible way [4]. This philosophy of management has spread worldwide and arrived in Brazil, being rapidly incorporated into the control of pests, especially for maize crop.

Brazilian agriculture has evolved in recent years, with significant yield gains in many eco‐ nomically important crops, including maize. Besides the use of agricultural inputs with quality and cutting-edge technologies, the climate in general has contributed to the increase in production. Despite these favorable factors, phytophagous insects also continue to be a cause for concern in agribusiness because of its great ability to adapt to changes seen in production systems. The solution adopted to reduce the losses arising from the injury caused by pests has been, in most cases, the application of chemical insecticides. It is relatively easy to understand the reasons that have led the farmer to choose chemical control as a control tactic of "recog‐ nized" insects to cause economic losses.

The general understanding is that chemical insecticides have indisputable advantages: low cost, acts quickly, little demand in knowledge, and can be used to control various pest species. Other causes for probably using chemical control almost in a predominant way is the lack of knowledge about other control tactics or even the lack of conviction about the effectiveness of these alternative methods such as integrated pest management.

The efficiency of chemical control is often not the expected by the simple fact that it depends on several technical factors, which most often are not considered when applying the product. Sprayer type, application type, nozzles for spraying, droplet size needed for good plant cover, solution volume, application speed, climatic factors (such as wind speed, rainfall, temperature, and humidity), phenological stage of the plant and of the pest target, attack site and economic level damage of the pest, and even the applicator qualification are some factors that can compromise the action of the applied product. Therefore, when these factors are not consid‐ ered, the probability of not achieving the expected results is high.

As soon as frustrations to control a certain pest begin to occur, the farmer must analyze, along with an expert, the causes of failure of the means adopted so far. When this analysis is not done, in general, there is always a risk of a mistaken decision making and probably leading to a situation worse than already detected. For example, making new applications or mixing or changing active ingredients (without considering that perhaps the causes are not related to the product used). Applications in excess also entail higher cost, with no evidence that they would be effective to control the pest satisfactorily.


**4.3 Relationship between brain damage caused by lead, low intelligence quotient and renal dysfunction**

Acute encephalopathy occurs in children of blood lead concentration of ≥80 g/dl [70], therefore low threshold of 30–70 g/dl has been suggested [71]. Every increase of 10 g/dl in blood lead caused a loss of 4—7IQ points, hence it is difficult to identify a threshold for decrement in IQ [72, 73]. Renal dysfunction was caused by lead concentration of blood at <40–70 g/dl, and 10 g/dl was associated with 9% reduction in creatinine clearance [74, 75]. Nevertheless, 85 g/dl blood lead caused increased susceptibility to cold and >50 g/dl caused significant immunological changes [76], such as increase in lymphocytes, abnormal T-cell subsets and cellular immune function [77, 78]. Lead concentration of >62 g/dl inhibited conversion of vitamin 2 into 1.25 dihydroxy vitamin 2 which was reduced in children with severe renal insufficiency, at blood lead concentration of 33–55 g/dl [79]. Nevertheless, blood lead concentration of 14 g/dl caused low birth weight, premature birth and increased risk of developmental abnormalities [80]. Threshold level for hypohaemoglobinaemia is 50 g/dl in adult and ≤40 g/dl in children, respectively [38]. Regulatory bodies such as Control of Lead at Work (CLAW) and Scientific Committee on Occupational Exposure Limit (SCOEL)

have recommended 30 g/dl for female workers of child-bearing capacity and 60 g/dl for men and others. However, European Lead Association has recommended 30 g/dl for men and 10 g/dl for women with reproductive capacity, respectively [81, 82]. Mean blood lead concentration of pigs that fed on venison was 2.29 g/dl which is 3.6 times higher than that of pig that did not feed on venison (0.63 g/dl). The venison-fed pig eliminated lead within 6 days of last ingestion [45]. Blood concentration of lead >5 g/dl is associated with high risk of spontaneous abortion in woman and the concentration > 40 g/dl is associated with decreased libido, sperm count and abnormal morphology of sperm cells [83, 84].