Some Pesticides Disappear Under Re-Approval Edict : Agriculture: Farmers find themselves with fewer and fewer chemicals to control insects, weeds and diseases.

Edwin Pope says his livelihood is on the line because it’s illegal to use a common fungicide to protect his turnip greens.

“We’re in a position where we won’t be able to grow the crops without the chemical,” said Pope, whose family has been planting turnip greens and other leafy green vegetables for 60 years in Brooks and Thomas counties in southern Georgia.

The Environmental Protection Agency banned the fungicide Maneb on leafy green vegetables in 1989 because of concerns about chemical residue. The EPA classifies Maneb as a possible human carcinogen based on animal tests. Growers are challenging the accuracy of the EPA’s residue estimates.

“I eat more of my greens than anybody,” said Pope, who has four children. “We eat them all the time. I’m not going to be spraying something that is going to hurt my family’s health.”

Since the ban, Pope said, he has lost turnip greens, collards and a field of kale to plant diseases.

Health concerns and the high cost of getting chemicals approved by the EPA have left farmers like Pope with fewer and fewer chemicals to control insects, weeds and diseases.

The Clinton Administration wants to remove even more. With help from growers, the Administration plans to develop a timetable for reducing use of high-risk pesticides by the year 2000.

Already, growers of fruits, vegetables and other so-called “minor-use” crops have been hard hit. They complain that chemical companies are unwilling to invest in the expensive tests needed to get pesticides re-approved by 1997, as mandated by Congress.

Minor-use crops include turnip greens from Georgia and Alabama, oranges, watermelons and sweet corn from California and Florida, peaches from South Carolina and cranberries from Massachusetts.

Without effective pesticides, some growers could be forced to switch to other crops, and consumers could face higher food costs and shortages of fresh fruits and vegetables, said Rob Nooter, director of government regulations for the American Farm Bureau Federation in Washington.

Karen O’Malley, a spokeswoman for the National Resource Defense Council, an environmental group, disagrees.

“Every time there is a prospect of banning any particular pesticide, the farming industry and the chemical industry screams that food prices will go up,” she said. “But every time a pesticide is banned, food prices don’t go up, and the industry has not been destroyed.”

Under a 1988 amendment to the Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, all pesticides that existed before 1984 have to be approved anew by the EPA by 1997.

Tests required for renewed approval of just one pesticide can range from $1 million to $12 million, said Ray McAllister, director of regulatory affairs for the National Agricultural Chemicals Assn. in Washington.

The amendment affects about 600 chemicals in thousands of pesticide products, McAllister said. Because of the high cost, manufacturers will not renew registration of about 200 of the chemicals, he said.

“Many of those would be minor-use pesticides, which have a smaller market and lower profit potential,” McAllister said.

Chemical companies give priority to high-acreage crops such as corn, cotton and soybeans. Although 40% of all U.S. farm revenue comes from minor crops, they account for fewer than 2% of all acres planted.

Farm-state congressmen have introduced a bill that would give companies incentives for re-registering minor-use chemicals.