STRATEGIES FOR DEPLOYMENT OF AGRICULTURAL COUNTERMEASURES

The aim of the Relative Effectiveness of Agricultural Countermeasures Techniques workshop (REACT) was to provide a forum in which to evaluate current knowledge of different agricultural countermeasures. Initial decisions about the possible need for intervention in a particular area will be made at national or regional government level. The arguments that underlie these decisions were outside the remit of this workshop. Instead, attention was directed towards the basis for practical decisions about countermeasures that could be employed in a particular situation. Countermeasures differ, both in their effectiveness and their economic, ecological and social impact. In certain situations countermeasures developed before and since the Chernobyl accident have general applicability. However, this is not always the case and in general a fundamental understanding of the processes involved is needed to predict the effect that a given countermeasure might have under a range of different circumstances.