SECTION: IN THE NEWS

LENGTH: 1236 words

HEADLINE: PREPARED STATEMENT OF
KEVIN GARDNER
CHAIRMAN
AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION
YOUNG FARMER AND RANCHER COMMITTEE
BEFORE THE HOUSE AGRICULTURE COMMITTEE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENT OPERATIONS, OVERSIGHT,
NUTRITION AND FORESTRY
SUBJECT - IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FOOD QUALITY PROTECTION ACT

BODY:


Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank you and the members of the Subcommittee for holding this hearing and your continued work on this very important issue. I am Kevin Gardner, Chairman of the American Farm Bureau Federation's Young Farmer and Rancher Committee. Together, with my wife Glenna and our four young children, we operate a corn, wheat, soybean, tobacco and alfalfa hay farm in Barren County, Kentucky.
Like almost everybody else, Farm Bureau supported passage of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) of 1996. With today being the three-year anniversary of FQPA's passage, how the act is being implemented is causing great concern. We are now being told that farmers must mitigate risk for many critical pesticide tools, some of which have been used safely for over forty years. As we witnessed yesterday, this means the outright cancellation of uses and dramatically altering use patterns of others.
As a younger member of the farming community and an individual now only beginning to invest in the business of food production, I need to be assured that safe crop protection tools I depend on will be available to me when I need them. Starting out in farming is not an inexpensive undertaking. It involves, as you all know, a substantial amount of investment and risk. My creditors are relying on me to produce a product that has value so that I can repay them.
I plan to farm for years to come. I also plan to support my family and supply consumers with safe and affordable products. But actions taken yesterday by EPA Administrator Browner are unjustified and have the potential to cause severe harm to many in agriculture with no increase in consumer safety. As for children's safety, my wife and I shop at the same grocery stores and serve to our children the same foods non- farmers buy. Our food supply is safe and our ability to produce the safest, most abundant and affordable food on earth is unequaled. Our regulatory system is the most rigorous in the world.
The organophosphates represent the single most important class of insecticides used in the United States and are the first target of EPA. They are also essential to integrated pest management (IPM) programs. With a farm economic crisis brought on by historically low prices, I believe the agency has acted irresponsibly.
Beyond the immediate farm level impact, yesterday's actions give me great concern because of the lack of any coherent objective or science-driven process. A year ago Vice President Gore, taking a cue from this committee, issued a memorandum with four basic principles to guide the implementation of FQPA. They are: sound science, transparency, transition for agriculture, and public input. We in agriculture welcomed that attempt to establish a rational meaningful process. Until recently it seemed to be succeeding in bringing some order to a very complex and difficult task. I believe the four principles are sound and based on common-sense. But as a farmer they take on additional meaning to me.
The first principle is transparency. Growers and the non-agricultural pesticide user community trusted that the implementation process for the FQPA would be transparent and follow established administrative procedures for federal rules and regulations. It has not.
Over a year and half after the Vice President's memorandum, and the first deadline now here, not a single science policy paper has been finalized. How can the agency be making fair pesticide risk assessments at the same time they are still seeking public comment for that same process? Without these policies can anyone possibly understand the process?
The second principle is transition and the availability of safe pest control products for farmers and other users. Transition in agriculture is an ever-present event. I am constantly adopting new practices on my farm. But I base those on sound information, not guess work and assumptions. I need to stay abreast of the latest technology and practices and then make reasonable decisions. As a farmer, transition to me means identifying new crop protection products, practices and technologies as alternatives for products that show unreasonable risk. The alternatives must be safe, effective and economically viable. My creditors and my wife would frown on my acceptance, with blind faith and a wink and a nod from EPA, that an alternative will be available down the road.
The third principle is sound science. I don't base decisions I make on my farm on "default assumptions" and shoddy science, and neither should the EPA. They are responsible for decisions that will affect my family and my farm for years to come. Prior to FQPA, the focus was on dietary risk. After the FQPA, additional exposures must now be considered such as drinking water and residential exposure. These provisions make sense only if the agency uses real data and reliable information. To do otherwise doesn't make the regulatory system any more protective of public health, only more difficult to navigate.
In light of the new requirements of FQPA, real data takes on even more importance. Worst case assumption about agriculture use when added to similar unrealistic default assumption from the structural pest control community, and from drinking water models total "theoretical risk," is usually well above the safety standard. The agriculture and the urban pest control industry depend on each other and the agency to use real-world data, not default assumptions.
With real data, we can replace these worst case assumptions, but it takes time and cooperation from EPA and USDA.
Farm Bureau supports corrective legislation to ensure fair and science based implementation of the FQPA. We want to thank all the members of this committee for their help over the past three years and continuing assistance in achieving a fair and balanced implementation of FQPA.
We don't believe that by passing the FQPA, Congress intended for the EPA and USDA to make hasty decisions based on theoretical risk that would unfairly and unjustly affect all users of pest control products. Instead, we believe and agree with Congress that sound science and a fair process is the foundation of this law. These themes are consistent with our views and with the Vice President's memorandum.
EPA made decisions for two organophoshates yesterday. These decisions are being made outside the reassessment process that is slowly being built and are based on unrealistic default assumptions, unclear science policies, and only serve to falsely scare the public about the safety of their food.
In conclusion, our society derives significant benefits from the safe use of pesticides on farms and in the community at large. Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), released a new report documenting major improvements in American's health and sighting, and I quote, the "consumption of five fruits and vegetables a day," as one of the major contributors.
There is a lot of good news for the American food consumer. The supply of food is bountiful, quality is unparalleled, variety is ever expanding and prices are reasonable. The U.S. system is unrivaled in the world. Our quality of life and health are evidence to this. Our hope is that FQPA will allow us to build on these successes.
Thank you for holding this important hearing and for your attention to our concerns.
END


LOAD-DATE: August 6, 1999