Pesticides cause an estimated 200,000 acute poisoning deaths each year, 99% of which occur in developing countries. Hazardous pesticides impose large costs on Governments. Harmful insecticides have catastrophic impacts on health and the potential for human rights abuses against farmers and agricultural workers, communities living near agricultural lands, indigenous communities, and pregnant women and children.

It is possible to produce healthier, nutrient-rich food, with higher yields in the longer term, without polluting and exhausting environmental resources, suggests a report by the Special Rapporteur on the right to Food, Hilal Elver, prepared with the support of the Special Rapporteur on human rights and hazardous substances and wastes, Baskut Tuncak. The report makes clear the underreported negative consequences that pesticide practices have had on human health, the environment and society, consequences which are often obscured by a prevailing and narrow focus on "food security."