One of the most complicated pieces of legislation to be approved by Congress in recent memory is making its way through the regulatory process, and the entire agricultural community is worried along with at least one major consumer organization.  Some consumers fear hasty and incomplete consideration of risks.  Some farm groups, in turn, fear the withdrawal of vital crop inputs necessary to maintain the U.S. food supply.

The law is the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) of 1996, and it's now up to USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency to implement the pertinent regulations.  EPA says it's on track: it believes the August deadline for reassessing 33% of all food tolerances will be met.  Overall, FQPA implementation is proceeding "significantly and efficiently."

However, Consumer Alert, coordinator of a coalition of 27 nonprofit groups that represent more than 4 million consumers, worries that another set of risks could be added to consumer concerns if implementation isn't accomplished carefully.  An example: "How does the pesticide risk for consumers compare to the risk of eating fewer fruits and vegetables because of misplaced fears or increased costs that result?"

The crop protection industry, represented by the American Crop Protection Association, fears that "many safe and effective pest management products essential to public health protection and agricultural production might be in jeopardy" if EPA continues on its present course of regulatory implementation.

How the act is being implemented "is causing great concern across the country," says the American Farm Bureau Federation. "We are now being told that farmers must mitigate risk for many critical pesticide tools, some of which have been used safety for over 40 years.  This could mean the outright cancellation of some uses and dramatically altered use patterns for others."

James V. Aidala of EPA and Keith Pitts of USDA told the House Ag Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry, that to be sure pesticide users have access to a range of safer pest control tools, EPA is assigning priority to and expediting the review of reduced risk pesticides that might be used as alternatives to riskier pesticides with special emphasis on organophosphate alternatives.

Many existing pesticides "will almost certainly be found to meet the new standard," they said.  "However, when the risk of a pesticide is above the safety standard set by law, EPA must take regulatory action to manage the risk."

USDA is developing "transition strategies" for farmers.  USDA is working with growers and processors of the commodities anticipated to be major risk contributors and to "proactively research and develop additional pest management tools."  EPA then will "aggressively pursue the registration" of those promising new pest management tools.

As of January, of the 9,728 tolerances subject to reassessment, EPA had reassessed 2,308 tolerances of which 303 were for organophosphate pesticides.  "We expect to reassess approximately 1,000 more tolerances by August to surpass the 33% target," Aidala said.

For Consumer Alert, the worry is that one set of risks will be substituted by another.  "Policies intended to protect the public from one risk might lead to higher risk in another area...different risks have to be weighed against each other for public policy decisions," said Frances B. Smith, executive director.

"Severe restrictions or bans on pesticides" could increase significantly the retail prices of many fruits and vegetables, Smith continued.  That could hamper poor families' abilities to buy adequate amounts of produce for healthy diets.  "Inner city minorities currently have the lowest dietary intake of fruits and vegetables.  Higher prices for produce could hurt them most."

Smith cited a 1997 consensus report from the American Cancer Society that concluded that the benefits of a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables "far outweighs the minimal risks associated with pesticide residues."

The crop protecting industry was "somewhat comforted" by the fact that the FQPA included how EPA should update and publish new data requirements for registering pesticides and how registrants should be given adequate time to collect the new data on old products and make it available to EPA, said Jay J. Vroom, ACPA president.  "We have petitioned and repeatedly urged (EPA) to fully utilize these data updating provisions of the new law.  To date, EPA has not responded to all of these petitions and has shown little indication that the use of these product specific data development provisions is a meaningful part of their implementation process."

Based on some of EPA's early decisions, "it appeared...that many safe and effective pest management products essential to public health protection and agricultural production might be in jeopardy," said Vroom.  Of particular concern are the organophosphates for which alternatives do not exist.

"The organophosphate pesticides represent the single most important class of insecticides used in U.S. agriculture and are the first of EPA's targets under FQPA," said Dean Kleckner, AFBF president.  "Others (pesticide classes) follow with uncertain outcomes which only increases Farm Bureau's anxiety and concern."

Would farmers have asked for the support of Congress, urging passage of the FQPA, knowing what they know now -- that the FQPA “could remove many of the crop protection tolls we rely upon most?" Kleckner asked rhetorically.  The answer, he added, is no.

"If the safety of our food supply was in question and deteriorating, or if the health risks for Americans from consuming food treated with crop protection tools were increasing, it would be understandable to take appropriate action to correct these problems," said Kleckner.  "But that is not the case."