The National Agricultural Pesticide Impact Assessment Program has requested every state to compile crop profiles. West Virginia apple, tobacco, alfalfa, and dairy cattle crop profiles are available on the World Wide Web. The West Virginia Crop Profile Web Site is http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/ipm/pestprog/NAPIAP/index.htm . The national Web Site is http://ipmwww.ncsu.edu/opmppiap/proindex.htm . As crop profiles are completed in all states, they become available on the national Web Site. Lists of profiles in progress also can be found at that site.
The Food Quality Protection Act requires the USDA and EPA to obtain pesticide use and usage data on major and minor crops. Of particular importance at this time are use and usage data for the organophosphates, carbamates, and possible carcinogens (B1’s and B2’s). These classes of pesticides have been identified as top priority by EPA for the tolerance reassessment process. These same pesticides also are vital to the production of many of our crops. Because some of these uses may be canceled, it is important to identify our current situation, our necessary goals, and what research efforts are needed to achieve those goals as far as pest management practices are concerned? In order to better understand where future research efforts should lead, it is necessary first to identify areas of critical need (i.e., those crops or situations where few, if any, alternative control measures are available to producers). To help USDA and EPA obtain this information, crop profiles are being prepared. It is the intent that crop profiles provide the complete production story for a commodity, including current pest management practices, and provide a look at current research activities directed at finding replacement strategies for pesticides of concern.
What Are Crop Profiles?
Crop profiles are summaries of pest management methods utilized on an individual crop within a state. They explain how crops are grown and why certain pesticides are important. They provide information on current pest problems, pest management methods, crop production data, and key references and contacts. The information contained in crop profiles may be critical for protecting pesticide registrations.
Fear that EPA may cancel a pesticide without being fully aware of producer impacts is common in the agricultural community. This concern is especially strong among the minor crop growers who may have few, if any, alternatives to the cancelled pesticides. This is where transition strategies come into play.
Transition Strategies
Some cancellations can be expected. When this occurs, critical pesticide uses will have to be identified quickly, in addition to activities at EPA that will result in new registration and a stated time frame will need to be given for transition to these new pest management strategies.
The April 8, 1999 memorandum from Vice President Gore emphasized that FQPA should be implemented in a way that would ensure that affected pesticide users have the time, technical assistance and support needed for transition to new and effective pest management tools. USDA and EPA will be working together to develop strategies allowing growers to make a transition to new pest management methods.
A transition strategy is a method to buy some time. It is a process to identify critical uses of pesticides (those uses that, if cancelled, leave growers few, if any, alternatives for pest control). It is a process that both pinpoints those areas where cancelled pesticides play a vital role in IPM and resistance management programs and identifies pest management tools, both chemical and nonchemical, that may be available in the future. The transition strategy also will indicate the time needed until a pest management tool will be available commercially.
Transition strategies are needed because EPA may propose that a pesticide or a critical use of a pesticide be cancelled due to unacceptable risks. We may not be able to prevent the cancellation, but we can negotiate with EPA for a phase-out period. Rather than an immediate cancellation, the opportunity for a transition period exists, and will be essential for the continued successful production of some commodities. The transition strategy will help identify where these phase-out periods are needed, the time required for that phase-out or transition period to occur, and any interim steps needed to successfully make the transition.
What Does a Transition Strategy Look Like?
There are three sections to the strategy.
Where Will Information for Transition Strategies Come From?
The information will come from many sources, including crop profiles, NASS data, NAPIAP assessments, state reports, commodity group information, Extension Service reports, the Office of Pest Management Policy’s pipeline database, EPA sources, USDA program information, the Internet, research from land grant institutions, etc.
In summary the transition will:
Reference:
Mississippi’s-Environment. Vol. 27, No.5, May 1999. Mississippi State University Extension Service
