North Dakota State University
NDSU Extension Service
Volume 19, No. 1, January 2001
Convictions on 35 Federal Violations in Montana
Financial Responsibility and the 2001 Certification Year
NDSU Advanced Crop Advisor Workshop Feb. 22-23 in Fargo
Complaint Summary for 2000 (10KB Adobe Acrobat pdf file)
Financial Responsibility Law (411KB Adobe Acrobat pdf file)
Enforcement Action Summary for 2000 (7KB Adobe Acrobat pdf file)
Hashbarger Spraying is Pesticide Applicator of the Year
Initial and Re-Certification training schedules (10KB Adobe Acrobat pdf file)
Commercial Pesticide Certification Training Pre-Registration
or Study Material Requests (10KB Adobe Acrobat pdf file)
Johnson Names Hove Pesticide Dealer of the Year
Tacogate: There Is Barely A Kernel of Truth
Need help with pesticide certification or
general pesticide use issues?Contact: NDSU Pesticide Training and Certification Program
Box 5051, Fargo, ND 58105-5051
Tel: 701-231-7180
Fax: 701-231-8474
E-mail: pesticid@ndsuext.nodak.edu
Internet: http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/aginfo/pesticid/pesticid.htm
At the time of this writing our country has finally completed another election. Congress remains in the hands of the Republicans — though narrowly. And, barring any unforeseen changes in the electoral college voting, the Presidency appears to be in the hands of George W. Bush, also a Republican. Closer to home, North Dakota's legislature and governor remain firmly in Republican control, though Roger Johnson, Commissioner of Agriculture and a Democrat, handily retained his position.
So, what does all this mean for pesticide laws, regulation, and policy? Well, the easiest response would be to say that I do not know. But, I've not been known to shrink from a challenge so I will attempt to read the tea leaves for you.
Congress is responsible for proposing or reforming laws and, then, with presidential approval, those proposals become law. Basically the congress will be asked by industry to reform the Food Quality Protection Act and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. Those reforms will tend to loosen the present laws so they are more friendly to pesticide users. Those reforms will be strongly opposed by environmental advocates. The bottom line is, pre-occupation with larger issues, narrow majorities, and a lack of consensus will mean no changes for at least two years and probably three. Finally, if any changes are made, they will be on the margins.
Because pesticides encompass such complex issues, the congress has delegated substantial power to the executive branch (the presidency) to interpret and implement pesticide laws. So, this change is very significant. Rules, regulations, and policy are now in the hands of a new administration. It will set a different tone in how EPA, FDA, and Commerce (trade) operate. In the short run, one to two years, issuances of regulations will slow dramatically simply because new people will be appointed to these bureaucracies and they will have to get up to speed before they act. In year two and beyond, these agencies will be slow to adopt new regulations or reform old regulations because of the underlying lack of consensus in the Congress. However, since EPA and Congress will now be in the hands of the same political party, budget differences should not be so ideologically charged. We may see a beefing up of EPA's pesticide registration budget. This may lead to faster approval of new products. The bottom line is, status quo in the short run, and only marginal changes in the long run.
Not much has changed in North Dakota. So, the same issues will be on the table. Pesticide trade friction with Canada, pesticide registration, and pesticide liability will be the main focus.
On more mundane matters, we have an extensive training season ahead. Few changes are in store, so this should be an uneventful year for pesticide certification. On the horizon we are working on interactive video training, on-line pre-registration, on-line training, and on-line testing. So stay tuned.
Best regards,
Andrew A. Thostenson
Helena, Montana (November 21, 2000) — Larry Johnson, part-owner of AG Wise Inc., an agricultural supply store located in the area of Kremlin, Mont., was convicted on November 15, in U.S. District Court in Helena on 35 counts of violating federal laws. A jury found Johnson guilty of conspiring to smuggle; smuggling and money laundering with respect to a scheme to illegally import a formulation of the herbicide "Roundup," the sale of which is prohibited in the United States because it can cause severe and irreversible eye damage.
The court ruled Johnson must forfeit $641,000. On November 13, several of Johnson's co-defendants also pleaded guilty. Larry Matthews pleaded guilty to conspiracy to smuggle the prohibited herbicide known as "Roundup Export" into the United States. John Hadley pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the distribution of a pesticide that is not registered for sale in the United States. Daniel Zabel pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. All defendants in this case are scheduled to be sentenced in February.
The defendants' actions led to the illegal importation of approximately 24,000 gallons of Roundup Export into the United States between 1995 and 1998. The case was investigated by EPA's Criminal Investigation Division, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Internal Revenue Service with the assistance of EPA's National Enforcement Investigations Center. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Helena prosecuted the case.
In 1997 the North Dakota Legislature implemented a financial responsibility (FR) requirement for all commercial pesticide applicators. The 1999 North Dakota Legislature modified this law and allowed additional exemptions for certain applicators certified in the Rights-of-Way category. This past September a legislative study committee recommended repeal of the FR Law to the 2001 Legislature. Unfortunately, this is a recommendation only, so until we hear differently, the NDSU Pesticide Program will continue business as usual with the FR law.
The NDSU Extension Pesticide Program will require the following documents from all applicators, dealers, and consultants who are certified in a commercial category in the year 2001:
Included in this issue of the PQ is a summary of the FR law and a
waiver for your use.
Click here for a printable version of the FR law and Waiver
(402KB pdf file)
This is an advanced workshop for individuals who desire the latest information on soil fertility, crop management, and information technology. This program is designed for crop consultants, agronomists, ag dealers, extension agents, and industry representatives. The program begins with registration at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 22 in the NDSU Memorial Union Dakota Ballroom. It concludes on Feb. 23 at 1:30 p.m. Continuing education credits for certified crop advisors will be available.
The number of workshop participants will be limited to 150 persons. Preregistration (including fee payment) is required as workshop enrollment will be filled on a firstcome/firstserve basis.
Workshop fee is $125 per person. The fee covers the cost of refreshment breaks, meals, social and reference materials. A full refund of the preregistration fee will be provided if requested by February 16.
A confirmation letter will be sent to persons who have preregistered (completed form and paid fee) to confirm their enrollment in the workshop.
Reservations for lodging may be made directly with motels in the Fargo/Moorhead area. A block of rooms has been reserved at a reduced rate until February 8 at the Kelly Inn, 3800 Main Ave., Fargo, phone (701) 2822143. Workshop participants must make their own lodging arrangements.
NDSU campus parking passes will be available for workshop participants. Car pooling is strongly encouraged when traveling to campus to reduce competition for limited parking spaces.
Advance Crop Advisers Workshop February 22 to 23, 2001
Workshop enrollment will be filled on a first come/first serve basis.
(Please print or type)
Name(s) ____________________________________
Organization _________________________________
Address ____________________________________
City _______________________________________
State________ Zip____________________________
Phone ______________________________________
Fee: $125 per person if received by Feb 12, 2001
Payable to: Advanced Crop Advisers Workshop
Return form and fee to:
Advanced Crop Advisers Workshop
c/o Greg Endres
Research Extension Center
Box 219
Carrington, ND 58421
701/652-2951 Fax: 701/652-2055
Requests for accommodations related to disability should be made to Greg Endres
at 701/652-2951 by February 1, 2001.
Please check any accommodations you may need during the conference:
The North Dakota Department of Agriculture Pesticide Enforcement Division reports the following complaints for the 2000 use season (October 1, 1999 to September 30, 2000).
Click here to view this report. (10KB Adobe Acrobat file)
Click here to view this report. (7KB Adobe Acrobat file)
Commissioner of Agriculture Roger Johnson has named Hashbarger Aerial Spraying of Hope as North Dakota's Outstanding Pesticide Applicator of the Year. Johnson said the company's commitment to excellence, especially to education, was the leading factor in winning the annual award.
"Continuing education -- it's the most important thing we can do as aerial applicators," said Joel Hashbarger. "The farmers in many cases aren't able to keep up on all the latest issues whether it's product use, environmental impact or worker protection, and they're looking to us to be professionals and leaders in our field."
Neil Hashbarger and his sons, Joel and Jerry, founded Hashbarger Aerial Spraying in 1992. The company offers both aerial and ground spraying and employs up to 10 people during the crop season.
Johnson presented the Hashbargers with the award during the NDAA Short Course and Trade Show in Fargo.
"The North Dakota Department of Agriculture and the North Dakota Agricultural Association cooperatively present this annual award to an applicator who does an exemplary job of providing customers with effective and affordable crop protection, while helping ensure protection of the environment," Johnson said.
The Hashbargers were nominated for the award by North Dakota Department of Agriculture consumer protection inspectors.
Clayton Hove, the agronomy production specialist for Farmers Union Oil in Stanley and Tioga, is North Dakota's Outstanding Pesticide Dealer of the Year. Commissioner of Agriculture Roger Johnson presented Hove with the award today, during the North Dakota Agricultural Association (NDAA) Short Course and Trade Show in Fargo.
"The North Dakota Department of Agriculture and the North Dakota Agricultural Association cooperatively present this annual award to a dealer who does an exemplary job of providing customers with effective and affordable crop protection, while helping ensure protection of the environment," Johnson said.
Farmers Union Oil at Tioga and Stanley has full service agronomy at both sites, offering custom application, dry plant food, seed, crop protection products and other sales and service. Last year, the cooperative covered more than 40,000 acres with its two floaters and sprayer.
Gordon Aas, Farmers Union Oil manager, gives Hove much of the credit for the success of the operation.
"We feel really fortunate to have Clayton as part of our team," Aas said. "He's dedicated, conscientious and . . . has a very good working relationship with the producers in the area."
Hove said plans for 2001 call for another agronomist at the Tioga location and another sprayer. Hove is a 1995 graduate of North Dakota State University. He lives in Stanley with his wife, Keri, and their daughter, Grace.
Hove was nominated for the award by North Dakota Department of Agriculture consumer protection inspectors.
By Thomas Hoban for the Washington Post
Sunday, November 26, 2000 — It's been amazing to watch the chain of events unfolding since StarLink, a genetically modified variety of corn used in animal feed but not yet approved for human consumption, was found in American-made taco shells. Domestically, thousands of the shells have been stripped from store shelves in a recall that was widened last week to include more than 1.4 million pounds of corn flour and other baking ingredients. Overseas, the Japanese government has reported with alarm that the corn has been found in imported American products.
With all the hue and cry, you'd think a dangerous, if not deadly, ingredient had been introduced into the U.S. and international food supply. But what's the startling discovery the alarm-raisers have made? Hold onto your seats, folks: Our corn, it seems, has been contaminated by — corn!
For all its ominous overtones, the StarLink incident has very little to do with science and safety. Instead, it's the latest skirmish in an ongoing conflict between environmental groups and the biotechnology industry. Mediated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has questionable credentials for regulating food safety, it has frightened consumers, placed undue burdens on farmers and caused a needless, and ultimately irresponsible, uproar.
StarLink, developed by the French-based drug company Aventis, is really no different from other corn, except for the addition of a gene that produces an insect-fighting protein. Corn had already been dramatically modified from the "natural" plant originally found in the wild. Those ancient ears of corn were the size of your little finger and looked more like grass than modern yellow corn. Over the ages, crossbreeding and, more recently, forced mutation, has produced the ear of corn we eat today. StarLink, with its one gene added to the approximately 60,000 in this modern ear, represents a very modest, precise change by comparison.
StarLink has not been approved for human consumption because of concern that its new protein may cause human allergies. Food allergy specialists have questioned this, pointing out that it's virtually impossible for anyone to have an existing allergy to a protein that would be completely new to the human diet, and that the corn, planted on only 1 percent of U.S. corn acreage, would be present in food products at extremely low levels. Steve Taylor, head of the University of Nebraska's department of food science and technology and a leading expert on food allergens, believes "there is virtually no risk associated with the ingestion of StarLink corn in this situation."
But fear of allergenicity is the reason the EPA has limited StarLink to use as animal feed. It has become the crux of the battle over StarLink, and the justification for the scare campaign that led to the recent product recalls. Yet it's unclear why the EPA, rather than the Food and Drug Administration, is calling the shots on StarLink's allergy-causing potential.
The original discovery of StarLink corn in taco shells produced by Kraft Foods was no accident. It was the result of a fishing expedition by a coalition of environmental groups, led by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, that aim to discredit the regulatory system and damage consumer confidence in the biotech industry. These groups, which oppose most modern agricultural methods, hired a testing company to analyze more than two dozen processed foods specifically for traces of StarLink. The taco shells were the only place where they found what they were looking for.
These protest groups have been waging an aggressive fear campaign against multinational biotechnology companies for years — first in Europe, now in North America. Their main strategy for preventing biotechnology from reaching the market is to attack the food industry. They call for consumer boycotts of food companies and supermarkets. But these rarely materialize because, as research shows, most Americans support new developments in science and technology.
I've studied the social impact of biotechnology for more than a decade. My own research and that of others has documented that between two-thirds and three-quarters of U.S. consumers support agricultural biotechnology and welcome its benefits, especially the reduced use of pesticides. This support was still evident in a survey I conducted right after the StarLink news broke. In it, 67 percent of consumers said they would continue to consume biotech products that had been engineered to resist insects, and only 3 percent said biotechnology was their most serious concern about food safety.
It's fair to say that Aventis should not have proceeded to market its corn without being sure it could be kept separate from approved varieties. This is, in fact, extremely difficult to guarantee. Our modern farm and food system is designed to be efficient and to keep food costs low, not to keep individual varieties of crops strictly segregated. A couple of years ago, in fact, Aventis was reportedly warned not to make a biotech soybean commercially available because farmers knew it would be impossible to keep it out of the export market, for which it had not been approved.
But the company clearly wanted to establish a presence in the fiercely competitive market for agricultural biotechnology. Other companies have already received full approvals for biotech seeds, including corn not very different from StarLink, that are being widely used by North American farmers.
Perhaps the most troublesome and confusing aspect of the controversy is the government role. Like many others involved in biotechnology, I was concerned to learn that it was the EPA, not the FDA, that granted StarLink partial approval while expressing doubts about its allergenic potential. The agency best equipped to deal with food allergens is clearly the FDA, which has a long track record in the area. Yet the EPA asserted regulatory control under the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, which expanded EPA's authority over pesticides. Because StarLink resists insects, the agency claimed jurisdiction with an interesting interpretation — treating a plant not as a plant, but as a pesticide.
The EPA may hope to be a big player in the biotech arena, but most experts agree it should not be regulating food safety. The EPA has plenty to do regulating the ecological impact of bioengineered plants, which is the greatest biotechnology-related concern of most scientists. It should concentrate its efforts on that and resist power grabs of the StarLink variety. Appropriately, the agency has recently come under increasing criticism from the food, agriculture and scientific communities for its handling of the StarLink episode and for introducing interagency politics into the issue.
Biotechnology represents a powerful set of tools that will have a significant impact on society over the next century. New biotechnology products provide important benefits, including reduced use of chemical pesticides and enhanced vitamin and iron content that will help prevent childhood blindness and other problems in developing countries.
Because it is so powerful, however, society should be able to control this new technology. Biotech crops do undergo extensive safety and nutrition testing, and biotechnology has been shown to be as safe or safer than traditional breeding practices, which have been used for decades without any formal testing or regulation. In an interview last January, FDA Commissioner Jane Henney said her agency has seen "no evidence that the bioengineered foods now on the market pose any human health concerns or are in any way less safe than crops produced through traditional breeding."
The main lesson of StarLink is that no new agricultural product should be made commercially available until it has received approval for human consumption. All parties now agree to this, so there's hope we won't see this kind of problem again. But while companies are expected to be responsible, the activist groups that oppose them and the government agencies that regulate them also need to act responsibly. It's not reasonable to demand "zero risk" from any technology, nor to hold biotechnology to unreasonably high standards.
We must also be careful not to impose higher costs on all consumers. Opponents who call for mandatory labeling of all foods with biotech ingredients do so mainly as a means of launching a further attack on the industry. The FDA already requires nutritional and health labeling, and research has shown that a simple statement that a food "contains genetically modified ingredients" would serve chiefly to confuse and alarm consumers.
The casualties in the war between the biotechnology industry and its opponents are farmers, food companies and consumers. Most of us have enough daily concerns without being frightened into thinking the food we're eating is dangerous. Food companies and farmers face serious threats from low profit margins to industry consolidation and global competition. With all this to worry about, a scare like StarLink is the last thing that any of us needs.
Thomas Hoban, a professor of food science and sociology at North Carolina State University, chairs a nationwide university task force on educating consumers about biotechnology.
Pesticide Quarterly, Volume 19, No. 1, January 2001
NDSU Extension Service, North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Science, and U.S. Department of
Agriculture cooperating. Sharon D. Anderson, Director, Fargo, North Dakota. Distributed in furtherance of the Acts of
Congress of May 8 and June 30, 1914. We offer our programs and facilities to all persons regardless of race, color, national
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