Federal Spotlight Focused on Farm Use of Pesticides : Agriculture: Growers in California are big users. A long-awaited health report is careful to avoid causing alarm.
A federal initiative to reduce the use of farm pesticides promises to put California farming under a microscope, because fruits and vegetables, widely grown here, are the most reliant on the chemicals.
The policy shift, announced Friday by the Clinton Administration, and a cautious report on how pesticides effect children, released Monday by the National Academy of Sciences, may also raise consumer interest in foods grown organically, without the use of synthetic pesticides.
The flurry of signals about pesticides seemed inconclusive--scientists said the food produced is safe to eat, but regulators implied that it isn’t. Reaction was predictably mixed in California and elsewhere.
“The situation is ripe for confusion,” said Carl K. Winter, toxicologist and director of the Foodsafe program at UC Davis.
The Administration, citing a “landmark in the history of food safety,” vowed over the weekend to restrict the use of chemicals on food crops and to promote so-called sustainable agriculture.
The three agencies whose jurisdictions overlap in this area--the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture--pledged to offer incentives to develop safe pesticides and to withdraw from the market the ones that “pose the greatest risk.”
“The laudatory policy objectives announced . . . by the Clinton Administration must now be translated into specific, enforceable legislative changes,” said Al Meyerhoff, an attorney for the National Resources Defense Council.
The Administration’s policy initiative was timed to coincide with the release of a long-awaited National Academy of Sciences report on the adequacy of pesticide regulation for protecting infants and children.
That report warns of “a potential concern” that some children may be ingesting dangerous amounts of pesticides. It said current standards for pesticide tolerance do not take into account differences between children and adults.
The report is full of caveats seemingly intended to avoid frightening consumers. It said children and adults should go on eating fruits and vegetables because they are good for them.
Various consumer and environmental groups praised the report, but Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers, criticized it as weak and too focused on the dangers to consumers rather than the risks to farm workers.
“We are disappointed that . . . this esteemed institution only offers risk assessment of pesticides, instead of banning these dangerous pesticides outright,” Rodriguez said.
Bob Vice, president of the California Farm Bureau, dismissed the idea that major change is coming in federal policy on pesticides. He called it a continuation of a 15-year trend and saw nothing alarming in the Academy of Sciences report.
“I don’t see any cause for panic,” he said. “The sense I get is they’re calling for more science and more study. If we’re talking about good science, I don’t think we disagree with that.”
State regulators named a task force to study the National Academy report to see how it might affect California’s approach to pesticide regulation, already the strictest in the nation.
“The report . . . will change the way pesticides are regulated, both nationally and in California,” said James M. Strock, secretary for environmental protection.
Molly Coye, director of the state Department of Health Services, said: “We still believe any risk to children from eating fruits and vegetables is extremely small and greatly outweighed by the health benefits of a balanced diet. The report recommends changes in how pesticides are regulated by the federal government. It does not recommend any change in our dietary practices.”
People should wash fruits and vegetables before eating them, she added.
The stakes for California agriculture are especially high. It has been estimated that because of the types of crops produced here, California products are responsible for perhaps 20% of farm pesticide consumption. That, in turn, is one reason for the high yields from California agriculture.
Attention has been focused on fruits and vegetables because they are far more valuable on a per-acre basis than field crops such as corn. That value makes growers doubly eager to protect their investment however they can, and causes chemical companies to concentrate on produce.
As a result, according to the consumer group Public Voice for Food and Health Policy, at least 19 of the 25 commodities that are treated with the most insecticides, herbicides and fungicides per acre are fruits or vegetables.
The California crops most vulnerable to tighter regulation are strawberries, tomatoes and lettuce. Together, the three account for 10% of the state’s $18-billion farm economy.
The government’s announcement dimmed hopes of many California farmers, especially tomato and strawberry growers, that the federal government would relent on its plan to phase out methyl bromide, a soil fumigant used on dozens of crops.
Methyl bromide, considered a cause of ozone depletion, is to be out of use by 2000. But farm interests insist there is no comparable product to replace it.
The state banned the second-best fumigant, Telone, for other reasons.
