SECTION: EDITORIALS & FORUM; Pg. 8B

LENGTH: 436 words

HEADLINE: WHY SO DOWN ON THE FARM?;
RATHER THAN RELYING ON ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT PESTICIDES THE EPA SHOULD GET A GRIPON THE FACTS

BODY:
If you assumed what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assumes, you might never eat an apple again.

The EPA assumes that every apple, and every other fruit, and every vegetable, is drenched in the maximum amount of chemicals at the maximum possible strength from the time the seed is planted to the time the crop is harvested. The agency is trying to protect consumers by erring on the side of caution. Chemicals, after all, can be dangerous to people when applied incorrectly or overabundantly.

But farmers wish the EPA wouldn't err at all.

During a visit to The Plain Dealer last week, American Farm Bureau Federation President Dean Kleckner and his Ohio Farm Bureau Federation counterpart, Robert B. Gibbs, said the EPA need not assume anything.

Farmers, large and small, must be licensed and federally certified to apply chemical pesticides to their crops. The law requires them to keep detailed records of the amounts of chemicals they use, along with the strength and the frequency of application. Expense alone would keep most farmers from laying on the maximum amount of pesticide possible. Besides, they say, such heavy use is unnecessary.

But because the EPA's assumptions are all based on the maximum possible use, the agency is creating and acting on a set of false premises. The farm bureau fears that the inflated assumptions might end up severely restricting the ability to use helpful chemicals, ultimately hurting farmers' ability to produce and leading to higher food prices at grocery check-out counters.

They also fear that their losses will be gains for foreign producers, who will not have to operate under U.S. pesticide restrictions. The result of that would be of no benefit to consumers: higher-priced food from foreign nations that use the very same chemicals the EPA is supposed to regulate.

And worse yet, Kleckner says, the EPA is facing the first deadline under a 1996 law that requires the agency to re-evaluate every pesticide in use in the United States. By this August, one-third of that work is supposed to be done. Kleckner wants the EPA to have more time to do that job. So do scores of members of Congress who have signed on as co-sponsors of the Regulatory Fairness and Openness Act.

In Ohio, 15.1 million acres are in agricultural production, and many of the crops this state's farmers grow depend on the wise use of organophosphate and carbamate pesticides. Wise use requires wise rules. Wise rules seldom are made in haste or on unrealistic assumptions.

The EPA should be allowed the time to do its job right, and base what it does on solid data.

LOAD-DATE: June 13, 1999