CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS PROPOSITION 128 : Impact on Food if ‘Big Green’ Passes Debated

A California ballot measure that would phase out the use of at least 25 pesticides--and potentially ban more than twice that number--could force major changes in the way food is grown around the nation.

The measure, which will appear on the Nov. 6 ballot as Proposition 128, would ban pesticides that cause cancer or birth defects if the chemicals are used on food. Produce and other food commodities from outside the state could not be sold in California if they were grown with these pesticides.

The rules are among the most controversial provisions of Proposition 128, the environmental initiative known by its backers as “Big Green,” because they ban pesticides even if they contain only trace levels of carcinogens or reproductive toxins.

No one is certain how many chemicals eventually might be lost to agriculture because many have not been fully tested or analyzed. Clouding the picture even more are widely different interpretations of the initiative by the environmentalists who wrote it and the California Department of Food and Agriculture. If the measure is passed, the agency stands to lose some of its responsibilities for pesticide regulation to the California Department of Health Services.

“There’s an ironic campaign by Food and Ag to make this initiative even more far reaching than it is,” said Al Meyerhoff, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group sponsoring the initiative. “I know that once this passes . . . they will reverse direction 180 degrees and claim that the initiative doesn’t include anything.”

Jim Wells, an assistant chief of the department’s pest management division, said Meyerhoff is “desperate.”

“I think the proponents--when they saw what the impact was--realized it would frighten people, and are trying to back away from it and say, ‘No, no no, it won’t cover that.’ ”

But even under the most narrow interpretation, the pesticide provisions would be far-reaching.

“You are essentially dictating to other states how they can and can’t use pesticides,” said Jack Moore, a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assistant administrator and president of the Irvine-based Institute for Evaluating Health Risks.

Supporters and opponents predict the initiative would spark renewed efforts in Congress to curtail states’ rights on pesticide regulation. Congress has failed to muster enough votes to prohibit states from enacting tougher regulations than those set by the EPA.

But Moore said he believes the initiative would spur Congress to limit states’ rights, “or if not, it would be a close vote.” Moore’s nonprofit institute, established a year ago, attempts to determine the potential health effects of chemicals for government and industry clients.

Out-of-state farmers who used banned pesticides would have to discontinue them, set up a separate production system for California, stop selling in the state or continue to use the chemicals and hope that residues could not be detected.

Among the chemicals the initiative would phase out is a herbicide called alachlor, the most widely used pesticide in the nation, according to the EPA.

The EPA says consumers have about a one-in-a-million risk of getting cancer from consuming food treated with the chemical--a risk so small that many contend it is insignificant. Environmental groups counter that alachlor, which has been banned in Canada, is a major pollutant of ground water in the Midwest.

Even Proposition 135, a counter initiative largely intended to preserve the status quo and head off the environmentalists, would reach beyond California, according to Moore and the Department of Food and Agriculture.

That initiative, backed by growers, would substantially increase the amount of food tested by the department for pesticide residues. The produce could not be sold if it contained residues of chemicals not permitted in California. State officials say farmers in other states use a handful of pesticides now prohibited for food use in California. Foreign countries use about a dozen such chemicals.

Proposition 135 also would set up a governor-appointed science advisory panel to advise the department on what it considers safe levels of pesticide use and repeal $1.5 million in licensing fees paid by produce dealers and food processors. The general fund would have to make up that revenue.

Production of sterile Mediterranean fruit flies would be doubled to reduce future aerial pesticide spraying in urban communities and $25 million would be provided for research into pesticide alternatives.

But the measure still would allow the Department of Food and Agriculture, which many critics contend places the needs of farmers over public health, to continue to call most of the shots on pesticide regulation in California.

“I don’t see the (farmers) initiative as so much changing the way things are being done,” said Moore, who is familiar with both measures.

Proposition 128 is far more sweeping.

It bans 25 pesticides outright. That number will climb as studies required by the initiative discover more products that contain carcinogens or reproductive toxins. Manufacturers also may decide to abandon some products rather than spend the money for testing.

The EPA, which regulates pesticides for the nation, now allows farmers to use most of these pesticides but has placed some under special review to determine whether they should be restricted further because of potential health hazards.

In allowing use of the pesticides, the agency has determined that the benefits exceed the risks. The EPA says the risks are low because consumers are exposed to only small amounts of the substances.

“Under Big Green, there is no safe dose,” Moore said. “If it is listed as causing cancer or birth defects, it’s gone.”

In California, six of the 25 pesticides specifically targeted by the initiative already are not used on food in California, according to state agricultural officials. Those six include one that is no longer permitted on food grown in the United States and another that is no longer manufactured.

According to agricultural researchers at the University of California, there are substitutes, albeit potentially more costly and less effective, for most of the other pesticides used on California crops.

There are no identified alternatives for several fungicides needed to combat diseases on dozens of crops, the researchers say, or for an insecticide now applied to eight crops that make up only a small share of the state’s agriculture.

“The impact (from the loss of the targeted pesticides) is not going to be as big as the farm groups say, but it’s not going to be nothing either,” said Frank Zalom, director of the statewide integrated pest management project for the University of California.

“Individual growers are going to have problems with it “but it’s really difficult to say (what will happen) across the whole ag industry.”

Experts agree that the loss of fungicides--chemicals used to kill fungus-caused diseases--would hit agriculture hardest.

“In the U.S., some crops can’t be grown in certain areas without severe fungus problems,” said William Jordan, chief of policy staff in the EPA’s pesticide program. “I think the list of available substitutes is very small, if there are any.”

The initiative would give farmers in most cases five to eight years to shift to other chemicals or alternate farming practices if no substitute is available. Twenty-million dollars would be spent on research to develop alternatives.

Government pesticide regulators argue that five to eight years may not be enough time to develop, test and register substitutes for use. Representatives of environmental groups counter that the federal government has previously yanked pesticides off the market with almost no notice. The supporters also contend that Proposition 128 will not catch pesticide manufacturers off guard.

“The initiative is not an immediate and total ban,” said Meyerhoff of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “And the writing has been on the wall for years that the days for most of these products are numbered.”

The biggest dispute over the potential impact of “Big Green” revolves around the number of chemicals it would actually prohibit.

Opponents, who argue that Proposition 128 would raise food prices, speculate that the initiative could phase out hundreds of pesticides and warn that alternatives, even if they do not cause cancer or birth defects, could pose other significant health hazards.

Meyerhoff argues that no more than 50 pesticides would be phased out over the next 10 to 20 years.

Of major concern to farmers is how many pesticides would be banned by a provision that prohibits potentially harmful substances that are unavoidably added to the pesticide during manufacturing.

Jim Wells, the Department of Food and Agriculture official, said he cannot estimate the loss under that provision.

“I don’t know how many (such cases) we have out there,” he said, “and we don’t have any way of knowing unless we looked at all the formulations in depth and did some analyses.”

Such uncertainty unnerves farmers, who fear the loss of many of their tools, and aggravates environmentalists, who distrust government’s ability to ensure a safe food supply. It is exacerbated by conflicting interpretations of which pesticides would be covered by the measure.

Joel Nelson, president of California Citrus Mutual, a citrus producers trade association, argues, for example, that “Big Green” will disrupt pest management practices designed to reduce reliance on pesticides.

Nelson, who is campaigning for the farmers’ initiative, said citrus growers spread an oil-based product on the leaves of citrus trees to smother the eggs of a pest before hatching. Because a contaminant of the oil is benzene, which causes cancer, the product would be phased out by Proposition 128, according to Nelson and officials at the Department of Food and Agriculture.

Lawrie Mott, a senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, disagrees. She said the product would not be banned because oil is not considered a pesticide by federal regulators.

The most drastic scenarios for the initiative’s impact are based on misinterpretations, Mott and other sponsors contend.

Indeed, the Department of Food and Agriculture says it interprets one provision as possibly banning as much as 65% of all pesticides. State agricultural officials also insist the measure would phase out some insecticides used in the home and on pets; the sponsors say it only applies to pesticides when they are used to grow food.

But even among the sponsors, there is occasional confusion about just what the initiative would do.

According to the Department of Food and Agriculture, at least one formulation of malathion, a pesticide that is most widely known for its use against the Mediterranean fruit fly, could be banned because it contains heavy metals.

“If this initiative will ban malathion, that’s the best news I have heard in weeks,” said Meyerhoff, the defense council’s attorney. “But it’s incorrect.”

Mott contradicts her colleague. If the formulation of malathion containing heavy metals were used on food, it would be subject to a five- to eight-year phase-out, she said.

Veda Federighi, a spokeswoman for the Department of Food and Agriculture, notes that unless the initiative is passed and regulations adopted, its impact will remain uncertain. Proponents argue that their intent will shape how the final rules are developed.

“Like everything else,” Federighi said, “it depends on how the regulations are written to implement it.”