In 1988, the Environmental Protection Agency administratively adopted a negligible risk or de minimis standard for registering pesticide uses in agriculture. The de minimis standard provides opportunity to lower the carcinogenic risk from pesticide residues in food. By providing a market for negligible risk pesticides, the new standard will likely allow reduction in use of the more hazardous compounds. Further, the new standard could lower food production costs if fewer uses of currently registered pesticides are banned. However, the agency's lack of data and safety margin procedures can potentially result in underestimates or overestimates of tumor risk. This report is based on papers and discussions at a Southern Agricultural Economics Association symposium in New Orleans in 1988.