The Overlooked Impact of Botanical Pesticides on Non-Target Organisms

Aiming to better understand how botanical products affect non-target organisms, the pre-sent work reviews current literature focusing on the toxicity of botanical pesticides to or-ganisms other than targeted pests, in order to trace a panorama on the future of sustaina-ble agricultural models worldwide, considering the importance of ecotoxicological studies in the development of new pesticides, including the botanical kinds, which are commonly recognized as essentially harmless. The article reviews published works gathered from digital databases and highlights modern tendencies in pest management research and the development of novel bioinputs, while discussing the Brazilian current legislature re-garding agricultural innovations and field obstacles. Nanotechnology techniques are dis-cussed as major innovations employed in the pest control field, and their employment in the improvement of botanical pesticides is addressed and explored. In this work we ana-lyze the factors involved in determining the success of botanical products and their im-portance to the implementation of a more sustainable way to manage crops. The results indicate a significant lack of studies focused on effects of botanical products on non-target organisms, and an increase in studies with nanoformulations.