The EIQ consists of three components, a farm worker component aggregating human toxicity information, a consumer component aggregating human chronic toxicity, pesticide fate in soil and food and leaching to groundwater and an ecological component adding up effects on aquatic and terrestrial organisms (Kovach et al., 1992). For each parameter evaluated EIQ uses a rating system from 1 (least harmful) to 5 (most harmful). The overall EIQ is expressed as the average value of the three components. The EIQ has been applied in studies assessing trends in impact of pesticides in orchard fruit in the UK over years (Cross, 2012), the environmental impact of glyphosate resistant weeds in Canada (Beckie et al., 2014) and in studies comparing cropping systems based on conventionally bred crops with genetically-modified herbicide resistant crops (Stewart et al., 2011).

 

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