U. S. Food and Drug Administration
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
Pesticide Program: Pesticide Monitoring Database 1997
August 1998

Pesticide Program
Pesticide Monitoring Database
1997

Welcome to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Pesticide Monitoring Database for Fiscal Year 1997. The data files for downloading are either in dBase or ASCII text format; an explanation of each type is given below. Files must be downloaded for further use. No online search capability is available for these files.

• The dBase (.dbf) files contain FDA's pesticide monitoring data as summary information. The dBase files come with a search program and report formats to enable the users to perform simple searches and generate reports. The search program and report formats will only work in dBase III+.

• The ASCII text file contains FDA's pesticide monitoring data as raw data for individual samples. To use this file, the user must develop a database structure into which the file can be imported. The structure of the raw individual sample data is considerably more complex than that of the summary files and requires greater familiarization and caution by the user to use the file properly

Information on the structure and content of both files, and on the search and report generation procedures, are described in the User's Manual.

PLEASE READ THE MANUAL BEFORE USING THE DATABASE.

dBase format files

The dBase database consists of three parts:

• Search program and report formats for use with the dBase files (detailed and summarized data files).
• Detailed data file that presents FDA regulatory monitoring coverage and findings for 1997 by country/samples flag/food product/pesticide combination. Sample flag is the classification as "surveillance" or "compliance."
• Summary data files that present an overview by country/sample flag/pesticide combination (without regard to product) and by country/sample flag/food product combination (without regard to pesticide).

The files are all provided as compressed executable files, which automatically decompress when you load them.

NOTE: To use only part of the data, combine (append) only those files of interest; final file must be named DATA1997.dbf. The combined four files contain 320,519 records. See User's Manual for directions for combining or for using only file(s) of interest.

ASCII text format files

For users who wish to examine the FDA pesticide monitoring data on an individual sample basis, the raw data for individual samples are provided as ASCII text file. User's Manual describes the structure and content of the file of individual sample data.

To report access problems, contact Fred Fry, frf@vm.cfsan.fda.gov.

To comment on the Pesticide Monitoring Database content or request further information, contact Mark Wirtz, Mark.Wirtz@cfsan.fda.gov.