This book explores human exposure and consumer risk assessment in response to issues surrounding pesticide residues in food and drinking water. All the three main areas of consumer risk assessment including human toxicology, pesticide residue chemistry and dietary consumption are brought together and discussed. - Includes the broader picture - the environmental fate of pesticides - Takes an international approach with contributors from the European Union, USA and Australia - Highlights the increasing concerns over food safety and the risks to humans

The prospect of climate change has revived both fears of food insecurity and its corollary, market opportunities for agricultural production. In Australia, with its long history of state-sponsored agricultural development, there is renewed interest in the agricultural development of tropical and sub-tropical northern regions. Climate projections suggest that there will be less water available to the main irrigation systems of the eastern central and southern regions of Australia, while net rainfall could be sustained or even increase in the northern areas. Hence, there could be more intensive use of northern agricultural areas, with the relocation of some production of economically important commodities such as vegetables, rice and cotton. The problem is that the expansion of cropping in northern Australia has been constrained by agronomic and economic considerations. The present paper examines the economics, at both farm and regional level, of relocating some cotton production from the east-central irrigation areas to the north where there is an existing irrigation scheme together with some industry and individual interest in such relocation. Integrated modelling and expert knowledge are used to examine this example of prospective climate change adaptation. Farm-level simulations show that without adaptation, overall gross margins will decrease under a combination of climate change and reduction in water availability. A dynamic regional Computable General Equilibrium model is used to explore two scenarios of relocating cotton production from south east Queensland, to sugar-dominated areas in northern Queensland. Overall, an increase in real economic output and real income was realized when some cotton production was relocated to sugar cane fallow land/new land. There were, however, large negative effects on regional economies where cotton production displaced sugar cane. It is concluded that even excluding the agronomic uncertainties, which are not examined here, there is unlikely to be significant market-driven relocation of cotton production.

The kuruma shrimp, Penaeus (Marsupenaeus) japonicus (Bate, 1888), is a valuable aquaculture species in Queensland, Australia. The shrimp is supplied live to the Japanese market and must survive emersed transport for up to 36 h. In-transit mortality after harvest from high water temperatures (> 30°C) has been reported by the industry, and a knowledge of the effects of high water temperature may provide important information for producers on grow-out management, timing of production and farm location. Experiments were conducted to determine the effect of high water temperature on survival, moulting and food consumption in P. japonicus. Replicated groups of 15.6 ± 0.2 g shrimp were acclimated and exposed to five temperatures, between 28 and 36°C, for up to 28 days. Mortality was highest at 36°C and equally lowest between 28°C and 32°C. Intermoult period was not significantly different for temperatures between 28 and 32°C (19.8–15.5 days) but was significantly greater above 32°C (27.4 days at 34°C and > 104 days at 36°C). There was evidence of moulting synchrony at 28°C. Mean daily food consumption was highest at 32°C at 2.34% of body weight, but decreased to 1.56% at 28°C and 1.33% at 36°C. Over the range of water temperatures examined, survival, moulting rate and food consumption were highest at 32°C.

Oil-in-water nanoemulsions were formulated using sunflower oil mixed with each of the essential oils of Tasmannia lanceolata (Tasmanian pepper leaf [TPL]), Backhousia citriodora (lemon myrtle [LM]) and Syzygium anisatum (anise myrtle [AM]) and stabilized with Tween 80 using ultrasonication. An oil-surfactant ratio of 3:1 was found to produce the lowest emulsion droplet sizes of 96.6 nm for LM, 122.2 nm for AM and 131.8 nm for TPL. Increase in surfactant concentration above 10r resulted in larger droplet sizes, 165.8–2,647.2 nm for LM (radius, r =.82), 153.7–2,573.5 nm for AM (r =.93) and 157.4–2,621.6 nm for TPL (r =.83). Sonication for 3 min produced smaller droplet size; however, sonication for 9 min resulted in increase of droplet size by 1.48, 1.43 and 1.47 times for oils of LM (r =.82), AM (r =.93) and TPL (r =.83), respectively. A positive correlation was found between sonication amplitude (20–50%) and droplet size for nanoemulsions of LM (r =.93), AM (r =.98) and TPL (r =.95). TPL and LM nanoemulsions showed broad- spectrum antimicrobial activities against yeasts and bacteria. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) against weak-acid resistant yeasts were between 0.001–0.003 and 0.002–0.007 mg/ml for nanoemulsion of TPL and between 0.003–0.014 mg/ml and 0.005–0.027 for nanoemulsion of LM, respectively. The stability and antimicrobial activity of TPL and LM essential oil nanoemulsions confirm their potential for application as food preservatives especially in beverage products that are commonly spoiled by weak-acid resistant yeasts. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of Food Safety published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.