SECTION: IN THE NEWS

LENGTH: 2647 words

HEADLINE: PREPARED TESTIMONY OF
HERB KARST
NATIONAL BARLEY GROWERS ASSOCIATION
BEFORE THE HOUSE AGRICULTURE COMMITTEE
DEPARTMENT OPERATIONS, OVERSIGHT,
NUTRITION AND FORESTRY SUBCOMMITTEE
SUBJECT - FQPA IMPLEMENTATION

BODY:

 
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee this morning. My name is Herb Karst. I am a barley, wheat, and canola farmer from Sunburst, Montana, and president of the National Barley Growers Association (NBGA). NBGA represents barley producers in Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Maryland, comprising the majority of U.S. barley production. NBGA is pleased to have this opportunity to testify on EPA's implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA).
NBGA recognizes the difficult task facing EPA in implementing FQPA. While we appreciate the efforts of the Agency to fulfill diligently the reassessment process required by the law, we believe that the Administration should prioritize its FQPA implementing objectives in a way that ensures that America's farmers do not suffer unnecessarily from policies predominantly focusing on eliminating chemical options. Insufficient attention has been given to providing access to better chemical alternatives to the farmer.
EPA must allow key pesticides to be used on barley and other crops that EPA considers "minor use" crops, or the small farmers who grow them will suffer devastating losses, and consumers who purchase those products will face higher prices.
EPA must improve its process for granting emergency exemptions that allow key pesticides to be used on crops that will be unprotected -- and likely lost -- without those pesticides. Presently, the review and approval process can be very slow due possibly to staffing demands of the FQPA reassessment process. This situation needs to be addressed immediately!
EPA must speed up its process for approving registrations for alternative pesticides that farmers can use in place of the products that they traditionally have used. Many uses of the older pesticides are being canceled, or soon will be canceled, as a result of FQPA implementation. Farmers must have alternatives to protect their crops.
EPA must be more flexible in allowing residue data for one crop to be used to support the use of a pesticide on another crop, when the science supports such a use. Without this flexibility, growers, especially growers of minor use crops such as barley, are left without products to save their crops from loss or damage, while unnecessary, costly, and time-consuming data axe produced.
EPA must make its regulatory requirements consistent with Canada's standards. American farmers simply cannot compete with crops grown in Canada, when Canadian farmers face fewer and less costly regulations. We believe that the NAFTA Technical Working Group on Pesticides (TWG) must quickly complete its work to provide harmonized registration options.I will discuss each of these points in more detail.
EPA Must Allow Special Consideration For Minor Crops And Lower Acreage Crops Like Barley
EPA's implementation of FQPA has meant that fewer and fewer pesticides can be applied on lower acreage crops. EPA considers a "minor use" a use on crops grown on less than 300,000 acres. Barley, with an projected acreage of approximately six million acres, is not afforded special EPA allowances reserved for minor use crops, yet falls short in competition with the major crops for the limited registration priorities afforded each manufacturer. With the implementation of FQPA, farmers may lose the use of many pesticides traditionally used on these low acreage crops. These farmers -- many of whom are small operations -- face devastating crop losses as a result. Consumers of these products will find them unavailable, or available at much higher prices than they should be.
The problem is a result of the FQPA requirement that EPA assess the total risk of all uses of certain pesticide products and determine the total risk it will allow for all those uses -- what EPA calls the "risk cup." Often, the major uses of a pesticide product "fill" the "risk cup," and EPA will not allow any other uses, no matter how small. In other words, EPA believes that the total risks of the major uses are the maximum that it can allow. EPA will not allow additional uses on minor crops, such as barley. Growers of these minor crops then are left without important products that they need to protect their crops and face significant losses as a result.
Not only are growers losing products that they must have to survive, they are not getting new products to take their place. Registration of a low acreage use often lags several years behind registrations of major crops because pesticide producers can earn much more money with the major uses than they can with the minor uses. FQPA attempted to address this type of problem by providing incentives to encourage the minor uses. These incentives include providing flexibility in waiving certain data requirements, and requiring EPA to expedite its review of applications for minor uses. In enacting FQPA, Congress recognized how important minor uses are. Congress now should require EPA to make changes in its FQPA policy so that minor use and lower acreage crops are not lost.
We believe there are several ways that EPA can meet its FQPA requirements and still allow much needed minor uses. One important change that EPA could make is to use actual data, rather than data assumptions, as it now does, in assessing the risk of pesticide products. We believe that if EPA used actual data, its risk calculations would allow many more minor uses, because actual data would show much less risk than the default assumptions that EPA uses. EPA should actively seek out real data from real documented usage rates. Our growers and state commissions, state agriculture departments, and extension services could provide the sound scientific data needed to be accurate in such calculations.
EPA Must Improve The Emergency Exemption Process
Barley growers and growers of other minor use crops often need emergency exemptions -- which the statute specifically allows -- to save their crops from loss. These exemptions allow growers to use a pesticide on a crop, even though EPA did not register it for use on that crop. These exemptions have become more important to growers of barley and other minor use crops since FQPA was enacted, since, as I discussed, many products now are prohibited from use on these crops. EPA must continue to improve the emergency exemption process or farmers will lose crops needlessly.
The reasons that the emergency process is bogged down is that EPA will not grant an emergency exemption without first conducting a lengthy and costly assessment to determine whether the "risk cup" for that pesticide is already full. EPA believes it must conduct this assessment because FQPA requires EPA to establish pesticide residue limits or tolerances for emergency exemption uses. EPA believes it must assess the risks of all uses of the pesticide before it can decide what tolerances it will allow for the emergency use. It is impossible to complete this type of assessment on an emergency basis. What is hard to comprehend is why in repeat Section 18 requests the whole process could not be expedited by the recognition of the previous year's collection of data. Additionally, priority must be given to the lower acreage crops that have few options in crop protection products.


The emergency uses requested often involve very small numbers of acres of a specific crop. Thus any risk posed by the requested use would be insignificant. When an emergency use situation arises -- for example, the unexpected infestation of a crop with a pest and no pesticide registered for use on that crop to eliminate the pest -- growers must have these exemptions on an immediate basis or they will lose the crop. Growers cannot wait for the results of an assessment that is months or years long.
One recent example of an emergency use situation affecting barley occurred when the Russian Wheat Aphid infested crops in Colorado. An emergency exemption was essential to allow small family farmers in central Colorado to provide a reliable domestic supply of barley, but unavailable because of EPA's interpretation for conducting emergency use risk assessments. NGBA applauds EPA's timely grant of an emergency exemption for the pesticide Warrior to be applied to barley crops in Colorado and Montana. We urge Congress and EPA to do whatever is necessary to assure that all such requests are handled as expeditiously.
We believe there is a solution to this problem. EPA should conduct an incremental risk assessment for each emergency exemption application, instead of conducting an assessment of whether the risk cup is "full," This solution to the emergency exemption problem was proposed in June 1998 petition filed with EPA by the National Food Processors Association, and we believe it should be adopted immediately. We understand that EPA is considering rejecting an incremental risk assessment and will propose to employ the same process it uses currently. This would be a mistake.
We also support the provision in Representative LaHood's bill entitled FQPA Implementation Act of 1999 (H.R. 1334) that would amend FIFRA Section 18 -- the emergency exemption provision -- to state that "EPA may issue such a tolerance or exemption associated with an emergency exemption without regard to other tolerances or exemptions for the pesticide chemical residue and before reassessing such tolerances or exemptions, if the Administrator determines that any incremental exposure that may result from the tolerance or exemption associated with the emergency exemption alone will not pose any significant dietary risk." EPA Must Approve New Pesticides That Can Be Used On Minor Use Crops
I have discussed the dire situation barley and other minor use crop growers face with respect to the pesticide products they traditionally have used, products that may not be available in the future. We need new, safer, and more effective products or we will not be able to grow our crops. New products are not available as soon as they could be, however, because of lengthy delays in the EPA approval process. Staffing limitations mean that EPA limits the number of Section 3 applications that can be submitted by any one company. These delays must be eliminated so that crops with lower acreage are not sacrificed to those of greater economic return to companies.
Much of the delay in the approval process is the result of EPA's efforts to ensure that all FQPA requirements are met with respect to new products, by applying stringent default assumptions that have little basis in reality. As Representative LaHood's bill recognizes, however, if EPA makes decisions on how individual pesticides are approved before "new policies are in place or before the needed data are available, they may be based on outdated and overly stringent policies, worst-case assumptions, or both." That bill further recognizes: "These actions may be accompanied by adverse publicity that could lead to unwarranted concern and could effectively destroy the marketability of products that in fact are safe."
When Congress passed FQPA, it placed a high priority on the registration of new, reduced risk pesticides. FQPA requires EPA to develop criteria for reduced risk pesticides and to expedite the review of registration applications that reasonably appear to meet those criteria. Congress now should ensure that EPA has the tools and incentive to register new products, especially products that can be used on minor crops, such as barley. Such action is essential to protect these crops from devastating and unnecessary losses.
EPA Must Be More Flexible in Allowing Residue Data From One Crop to Support Registration on Another Crop
Pesticide registrants who try to obtain EPA approval of their products for use on barley, often face formidable residue data requirements for that use, even though they have data on other similar grain crops that would support it. EPA should be more flexible in allowing uses of a pesticide on one crop based on residue data for another crop, when the science supports doing so. Otherwise, those products cannot be used before unnecessary, costly, and time-consuming residue data are produced. Products then are unavailable to growers for many seasons, without any good reason.
EPA has spent much effort in developing policies to implement the new FQPA standard for tolerances. Under FQPA, EPA must determine whether tolerances arc "safe," which is defined as "a reasonable certainty that no harm will result from aggregate exposure to the pesticide chemical residue, including all anticipated dietary exposures and all other exposures for which there is reliable information." These new policies must not ignore practical realities. If the science supports the use of already existing residue data for another crop, EPA should allow use on that crop. EPA regulations currently establish crop groupings that enable the establishment of tolerances for a group of crops based on residue data for certain crops that are representative of the group. Barley, for example, is in a crop grouping with other cereal grains such as corn, oats, rice, and wheat. EPA should ensure that this sensible approach is available readily by promoting greater use of crop groupings for tolerance-setting purposes.
Congress should require EPA to ensure that it makes the maximum use of already existing data before imposing costly and time-consuming data requirements. Needless residue data requirements can and do deprive growers of badly needed products for many years.
U.S. Pesticide Registration Requirements Must Be Harmonized with Canadian Requirements
Growers face unfair competition from Canadian growers, because U.S. and Canadian pesticide registration requirements are different. Only recently has the US begun to take advantage of work that Canada has already done in registering new pesticides for use on crops. Canadian growers have been able to protect their crops with new, cost-efficient products that were unavailable in the U.S. and thus produce bigger crops for less money than U.S. farmers. U.S. and Canadian standards must continue to be harmonized, so that U.S. growers are not an a disadvantage that they cannot overcome.
There are many examples of pesticides and herbicides that have been registered in Canada that are not labeled for use in the United States due to EPA's slow registration process. One product, Achieve, an inexpensive and effective wild oat herbicide used routinely in Canada, was only recently labeled for use in the United States.
Without this new competition, companies have been able to charge more for competing products in the U.S. One is Assert, a wild oat herbicide. At the end of 1998, Assert cost $14.75 per acre in the United States, but only $8.25 per acre in Canada. Another is Hoelen, also a wild oat herbicide. At the end of 1998, Hoelen cost $14.65 per acre in the United States, but only $8.12 per acre in Canada.
EPA has begun working with Canada and Mexico to coordinate scientific and regulatory decisions on pesticides through the NAFTA Technical Working Group on Pesticides (TWG). The NAFTA TWG's goal is to make work sharing the way of doing business among the United States, Canada, and Mexico by 2002. NBGA applauds the efforts of the TWG. The TWG must expedite its work to provide harmonized pesticide registration options.
Congress should ensure that the inequities that U.S. growers now face in competing with their Canadian neighbors are eliminated. EPA should develop an efficient and streamlined system to exchange and share pesticide registration information with its North American neighbors and should actively help to create a North American system for pesticide registration.
Conclusion
On behalf of NBGA, I thank the Subcommittee for allowing me to appear today to discuss these very important issues.
END


LOAD-DATE: April 24, 1999