USDA axes the sole national survey to chart pesticide use: comment

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Various diseases are known to be associated with pesticides. More

knowledge about locations of pesticide use is important. The enemicitous

acts of US " regulatory " agencies are worrisome and problematic.

Protecting investors who own patents or production of toxic molecules

has become far more important than human health.

Thu, 05/22/2008 - 07:01

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USDA axes the sole national survey to chart pesticide use

By GARANCE BURKE Associated Press Writer

Article Launched: 05/21/2008 04:19:21 PM

PDThttp://www.contracostatimes.com/bayandstate/ci_9336987?nclick_check=1

http://www.contracostatimes.com/bayandstate/ci_9336987

FRESNO, Calif.---Consumers lost a key source of information about what's

sprayed on their food on Wednesday, the last day the government

published a long-standing national survey that tracks the amount of

pesticides used on everything from corn to apples.

Despite opposition from prominent scientists, the nation's largest

farming organizations and environmental groups, the U.S. Department of

Agriculture confirmed Wednesday it plans to do away the program.

Since 1990, farmers and consumer advocates have relied on the agency's

detailed annual report to learn which states apply the most pesticides

and where bug and weed killers are most heavily sprayed to help cotton,

grapes and oranges grow.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also uses the fine-grained data

when figuring out how chemicals should be regulated, and which

pesticides pose the greatest risk to public health.

" If you don't know what's being used, then you don't know what to look

for, " said Benbrook, chief scientist at The Organic Center, a

nonprofit in Enterprise, Ore. " In the absence of information, people can

be lulled into thinking that there are no problems with the use of

pesticides on food in this country. "

Joe Reilly, an acting administrator at the National Agricultural

Statistics Service, said the program was cut because the agency could no

longer afford to spend the $8 million the survey sapped from its $160

million annual budget.

" Unless new funds are made available there's not much that we can do, "

Reilly said.

While the agency " hates eliminating any report that is actually needed

out in the American public, " he said consumers could find similar data

from private sources.

Still, only a handful of the major agricultural chemical companies spend

the approximately $500,000 it costs to buy a full set of the privately

collected data each year, according to a letter written by an advisory

committee to the agency.

Most farmers can't afford to pay for the information, even if they need

it to plan for the pesticides they'll apply.

Eliminating the program " will mean farmers will be subjected to

conjecture and allegations about their use of chemicals and fertilizer, "

said Don Lipton, a spokesman for the American Farm Bureau. " Given the

historic concern about chemical use by consumers, regulators, activist

groups and farmers, it's probably not an area where lack of data is a

good idea. "

Pesticide companies also rely on the program when they're looking to

reregister agricultural chemicals, said Beth Carroll, a senior

stewardship manager with Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc.

And environmental groups use it to analyze which chemicals could turn up

in local water supplies or endanger critical species.

In 2003, the Natural Resources Defense Council used the federal survey

to prepare a suit against the EPA, claiming the government failed to

assess whether the common herbicide atrazine threatened the survival of

endangered Chesapeake Bay sea turtles, endangered Texas salamanders and

16 other aquatic species. The case was settled in 2006.

Reilly said the agency would " love to reinstate the program, " but said

for now it will only do key surveys such as the monthly crop report,

which influences commodity prices on the futures market and livestock

reports, which set the price for hogs and cattle.

At a time when consumers are increasingly curious about what goes into

their food, farmers, chemical companies and advocacy groups said the

cuts would have wide-ranging impacts.

" What we'll end up doing is understanding pesticide use through getting

accident reports, " said Steve Scholl-Buckwald, managing director at the

San Francisco nonprofit Pesticide Action Network. " And that's a lousy

way to protect public health. "

*

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