Organic pesticides contributed to the agricultural and sanitary revolution which occurred during the twentieth century, based on the rise of chemical industry. Pesticides allowed to control vectors of disease and to secure quantitatively food supplying.

Involved at global scale, pesticides contributed also to the rise of consumer society: normalising products and discarding products which do not match with aesthetic norm, in disregard of gustative qualities by a more and more urban population. Coupled with mechanisation, pesticides contributed to induce rural depopulation and deeply modified agrarian practices: intensive single cash crop requiring little labour supplanted labour-intensive subsistence and diversified agriculture. Open-field landscapes often attest such evolution.

But pesticides’ role predominated directly in human demographic development since the second World War, by counteracting direct or indirect vectors of infectious diseases and allowing settlement in hazardous areas. Longevity and efficiency of pesticide formulations, even in rustic storage and spreading conditions, were exalted characteristics. Some decades later, deleterious effects of pesticides were undoubted: qualities turned in defaults. Global pesticide use induced persistent pollutant stocks in the environment, adsorbed on solid matrices and biomagnified through food web. Residues of pesticides conceived a long time ago and whose use is discontinued are still quantified in the environment. They are a part of the concerning heritage for current and future generations—another part of the legacy being consumer appetence for artful normalised products.

Environmental monitoring led to inform about discontinued pesticide residue content, which is cumulated with more recent pesticides and with the pesticides currently used. Metrological development, leading to lower quantification and detection limits for pesticides, provides abundant information about environmental contamination and increases the need of prioritisation for such molecules, considering their impact for human and environmental health. The anteriority of works for elder pesticides could paradoxically induce their overrepresentation compared to recent pesticides for which scientific research lacks of support for reaching the same level of knowledge. But elder pesticides like DDT or chlordecone appeal to management solutions, because their persistence and ubiquity obstruct definitive remediation.

However, such statement is mired in cognitive bias too because pesticide uses have alternatives, as for crops (agro-ecological above all) as for urban area maintenance (mainly mechanistic). Indeed, if the agro-industrial model grows because of the increase of the human population food needs, the agro-ecological alternative is recognised worldwide and grows faster. Agro-ecology bases on crop rotation and promotes soft agricultural practices like biological auxiliaries.

Since 1977, francophone researchers working on pesticides get together for the annual colloquium of the “Groupe Français des Pesticides” association (GFP). In 2014, the 44th colloquium was held in Martinique (French West Indies), from May 26 to 29. GFP is an association aiming to gather scientific community coming both from the private and public sector, involved in the study of pesticides whatever the disciplines, leading to transversal views and then innovative initiatives. Scientists from French (including overseas) and foreign universities but also from French public research institutes (BRGM, CNRS, CEA, Cirad, IFREMER, INRA, INSERM, IRD, IRSTEA) and from the industry came for exchanging their views and respective expertise on scientific news, thanks to grants from the Martinique Watershed Office (ODE 972), the Regional Health Agency (ARS 972), the “Ecophyto” French plan (locally applied by the Food, Agriculture and Forest Direction—DAAF 972—and the Council for Agriculture—CA 972), the Environment, land-use planning and housing direction (DEAL 972), the Scientific Department of the Martinique campus of the French West Indies and Guyana University, the Fort-de-France conurbation community (CACEM) and ThermoFisher Scientific. The international scale of the event was supported by Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD—French institute for scientific research in favour of South development) and especially its representation for West Indies, and by the office for West Indies of AUF, the Academic Association of French-speaking countries: IRD and AUF supported scientists from Latin America, Caribbean area and Africa.