THE FUTURE OF PESTICIDE USE

IN U.S. CROP PRODUCTION

Leonard P. Gianessi

National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy

1616 P Street, NW, First Floor

Washington, DC 20036

Phone: 202-328-5048

Fax: 202-328-5133

e-mail: [email protected]

Paper presented at the National Research Council Board on Agriculture Workshop on the Future Role of Pesticides, Washington, DC March 23, 1998.

The Board on Agriculture has undertaken a gigantic task of assessing the future role of pesticides in the U.S. � hundreds of different crops are produced in this country in vastly different growing regions. There are hundreds of pests that attack and compete with these crops. In my view, the future of pesticide use is that broad-spectrum synthetic organic chemicals will be in widespread use for the foreseeable future. Atrazine, 2,4-D, carbaryl, malathion and EBDC fungicides will still be widely used in 30 years as they are now. These pesticides are inexpensive, broad-spectrum, and they work well to control those hundreds of pests that attack and compete with U.S. crops. I believe that the possibility of biological controls or biopesticides replacing these synthetic chemicals is extremely dim and remote. Biologicals and biopesticides will never be economical replacements for synthetic chemicals in order to control the broad spectrum of pests that attack and compete with crops.

There is one wild card in my assessment, and that is the role of government regulation. Governmental regulation may effectively ban the use of the older broad-spectrum pesticides. In other words, governmental regulation may do what the marketplace cannot do � remove the older broad-spectrum compounds. There is considerable scrutiny of the risks of chemical pesticides, ecological and human health risks, in particular. The Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) provides EPA with new regulatory tools with considerable leeway in how risk calculations can be prepared. There is considerable concern that extremely conservative assumptions in risk assessments are being made, and as a result, many older products appear in some jeopardy, based on hypothetical assumed risks. For example, although many chemicals have never been detected in drinking water, some risk assessments assume that they are there anyway, at below detection level. Some chemicals are in trouble because of hypothetically calculated risks of drinking water exposure, even though they have never been detected in drinking water. These are assumed hypothetical risks, and I hope that the Board addresses the prudence of public policy based upon these types of risk assumptions.

There is another factor that underlies the regulatory interest in canceling many older pesticides. There is a pervasive view that there are numerous readily available alternatives to currently-used chemicals. The notion that there are all these alternatives is not based on an analytical, careful assessment of the two thousand or so major pest problems in this country. Such an assessment would list the individual pests, identify the current control practice, list the alternatives, quantify them in terms of effectiveness and cost, and identify alternatives still in development. This type of careful assessment, pest by pest, has not been undertaken. Perhaps this is an assessment that the Board will do. Nevertheless, there is a pervasive notion that alternatives are available, based on "politically correct journalism, politically correct proposal writing and politically correct research summaries." To put this in perspective, imagine a researcher who presents a proposal to increase significantly crop production in a state based on using more pesticides. Such a proposal would not be funded. Every proposal is written along the lines of reducing pesticide use and finding alternatives to pesticide use. Every research article describes a "promising" means of reducing pesticide use by using an alternative. There have been thousands of papers like this that have been written and presented at conferences over the past 10 years. The problem is that many policymakers, reporters and regulators interpret the promises as reality. Some of these alternatives sound so good in the research writeups. They work well in the lab; they are taken to the field and work well. The impression is that they are ready for use. Part of the problem is that it is not incumbent on the researcher to explain why it may not work out on a large scale. The researcher needs funding for another year of research. There are promising results to pursue. Research administrators, legislators and policymakers need to be hard-headed about these projects. Keep that big matrix of pests in front of you, and ask the question: Can the regulators cancel the broad-spectrum pesticide for this crop because the alternative is ready to go, or should this project be funded for another couple of years, or will it ever work?

The time is now to step up to the plate for people who believe that alternatives are ready. Under the Food Quality Protection Act, EPA is considering canceling a large number of organophosphate insecticide uses. The organophosphates are used on over 80 different crops in the United States. Sixty million acres are treated with organophosphates. If you have a non-chemical alternative for any of these organophosphate uses, for any crop, in any state, take that information to EPA. But you had better have some cost data and some efficacy data. You had better have a lot of confidence that the chemical use can be canceled, because if it is, it won�t come back.

One of the luxuries that researchers have been operating under for the last decade is that all this research into non-chemical alternatives could proceed, and it really didn�t matter whether it worked or not because there was a safety net of chemicals in place. It didn�t matter whether the research produced anything that farmers could use on a large scale because farmers were still using the broad-spectrum chemicals. Now it does matter. It is time to call in the researchers and ask the question: Can the regulators cancel the use? Is your alternative ready to go as a broad-spectrum replacement? I think that the Board could look at this problem in this fashion: For which crops can EPA cancel organophosphates? Where are the alternatives ready to go? I think that after examining all the pests, the pesticide uses, the alternatives and their efficacies and costs, the Board could draw a conclusion along the lines of: Out of two thousand pest problems in the U.S., the Board�s assessment is that alternatives are ready right now for X percent, and pesticide uses can be canceled accordingly. This is a very difficult assessment to make.

Instead of conducting an in-depth analysis, pest by pest, what usually happens is that reports simply cite some examples of various alternatives that appear to be working or that have been commercialized and used in the field. An example of this is on page 104 of the NRC report Ecologically Based Pest Management: "Collego: a Mycoherbicide Approach for Weed Management." In the early 1980�s, a plant pathogen was commercialized as a control agent for a single weed species in rice � northern joint vetch. No mention is made of the number of acres on which it was used. Pesticide use surveys for Arkansas indicate that at the height of its popularity it was used on one thousand acres of rice in Arkansas. If northern joint vetch was the only weed in the field, applying collego was feasible. One thousand acres received collego applications while one million acres of rice in Arkansas is treated annually with broad-spectrum herbicides that control 11 to 12 weed species. Normally, there is not just one weed species present, but 11 or 12. In a nutshell, that is why biopesticides or biologicals will not replace the vast majority of broad-spectrum chemical uses: They are too narrowly focused. In Arkansas rice fields there is need for 11 or 12 biopesticides or biologicals to replace the broad-spectrum herbicides.

Another sentence in Ecologically Based Pest Management on page 96 is, "Wide-scale implementation of Ecologically Based Pest Management could include thousands of commercialized biological control organisms and products." This is not really a very hard-nosed assessment. It could happen, but it might not. Why not tell us what the chances of success are? If $100 million a year were to be spent every year for the next 10 years looking for biological controls, can someone tell us that would be enough? Can some one tell us what would be necessary to find these thousands of biologicals and other kinds of organisms? Would a billion dollars a year in new research and thousands of scientists produce 90 percent of these thousands of products in the next 20 years? How much money and how many scientists are needed? Unfortunately, the research community cannot guarantee success in finding these thousands of biological controls. For example, researchers have been looking for a natural predator for the boll weevil for 100 years with no success. Someone may have to admit at some point that perhaps there is not a natural predator for the boll weevil. There may not be resistant genetic material for many, many different crop diseases. Researchers may never even understand why certain pests behave the way they do in the environment. Even if it can be understood, it may not be manageable biologically. This is a very difficult area. Sentences such as, "It could occur," are misleading. How much will it cost? What are the chances of success? Could we just as easily say, "It might not ever occur"?

Another item that interested me in the EBPM report was the description on page 31 of managing boll weevils in cotton. There is a detailed history of how chemicals repeatedly failed to control the boll weevil. Of course, no mention was made of the many failures of biological control work for the boll weevil. The solution to managing the boll weevil is described as eradication through a large increase in the spraying of an organophosphate insecticide, malathion. Research showed that eradicating the boll weevil was possible through a large increase in insecticide use. Ten to fifteen million pounds of malathion are being applied every year to eradicate the boll weevil from U.S. cotton. Sounds like a chemical solution to me. Once the weevil is eradicated, other solutions become possible for other pests. I think the Board should consider whether eradication programs would make sense for other crops. Maybe a big increase in insecticide use in asparagus or carrots would lead to eradication of key pests and make biological control programs possible for other pests.

A major part of the problem of assessing the role of pesticides in U.S. agriculture is that these chemicals are under appreciated and under valued. There is a lot of lip service paid to the enormous benefits that synthetic chemicals have provided. For example, on page 13 of the NRC report on Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children, this sentence appears, "Chemical pest control has contributed to dramatic increases in yields for most major fruit and vegetable crops." There is no explanation of that sentence, and right after that sentence the report describes 380 pages of risks. How about a 380 page report on the enormous benefits provided by chemical pesticides? No one would do such a report because it is totally politically incorrect. As a result, we have a poorly informed public and a lot of mythology.

One misconception involves the past � the myth that things were better before the introduction of synthetic chemical pesticides. Well, they weren�t. Wide-spread commercial production of fruits and vegetables began in the U.S. in the early 1900�s, and pest problems were managed with inorganic substances, such as arsenic, mercury, copper and sulfur. Essentially, all of the commercial fruits and vegetables grown in the U.S. between 1900 and 1950 were treated with arsenic to control insects. For the last 50 years, the synthetic pesticides have been used. We have never produced fruits and vegetables without the wide-spread use of pesticides. Organic growers use pesticides too. Looking into the future, I don�t see any change. We may call them by different names, biopesticides, biological control agents, but they�re pesticides. I believe that biological controls will be regulated as pesticides are. In a few years, predatory mites will have to be registered as pesticides. It is foolhardy to believe that regulatory agencies will find no serious problems with releasing thousands of biological products into the environment without serious scrutiny and regulation.

If regulatory agencies can assume that certain pesticides are in drinking water, even though they have never been detected there, imagine the regulatory havoc that can be assumed about releasing billions of genetically-altered insect parasites per acre for pest control purposes. We need a better perspective in this country on the value of controlling pests, whether the controlling ingredients are chemical or biological. I happen to believe that synthetic chemicals are going to be around for the next several decades, at least, and will continue to have a major role to play in managing U.S. crop pests.