With a streak of municipal pesticide bans enacted across Canada, the pesticide industry had been on the defence. Represented by trade association CropLife Canada, the public relations strategies used by the industry were front and centre at the association’s 2007 conference in Saskatoon, which Deconstructing Dinner host Jon Steinman attended. In this multi-part series, Deconstructing Dinner explores the government- and industry-driven messages on the subject; it examines research on pesticide and cancer connections; it digs deep into the care that agricultural migrant workers receive when working within our borders; and it challenges one of the most frequently used arguments — “Without pesticides, the world would go hungry!”