Potato growers work toward increased educational exchange with EPA
They didn’t bring popcorn, but representatives of the Washington State Potato Commission did bring moving pictures to a visit with the Environmental Protection Agency last week in Washington, D.C.
Recent conversations among potato growers and employees of the federal agency revealed questions and misconceptions on the part of the agency regarding use of some pest management methods. Washington growers decided to bring the farm to D.C. in the form of a swiftly produced 9-minute video, demonstrating handling and application of crop protection compounds during the planting of potato seed.
“The video was immediately popular and greatly appreciated by the people we met with,” said WSPC Executive Director Chris Voigt, who accompanied the delegation of Washington growers Randy Mullen, Ellie Charvet and Lynn Olsen. The state potato industry representatives were also in the nation’s capital to visit with the entire Washington Congressional delegation to discuss trade, immigration and farm bill issues.
EPA staff, some of whom have never been on a farm, are responsible for creating the registrations, e.g. instructions followed by farmers to handle and apply crop protection chemicals on how much, how often and where they can be applied.
“Pest control measures are a hugely misunderstood set of complex issues,” says Voigt. “There are many variables that farmers have to deal with. The better educated the regulators are, the safer and more effective our procedures will be.”
The WSPC is one of the sponsors of another educational program, highly valued by farmers and EPA alike. For over 15 years, the Commission has worked with other commodity producers and processors to host the Northwest Specialty Crops Tour, which brings EPA regulators and researchers to Washington and Oregon for three very full days of farm visits. Judged the gold standard of agency tours, the Specialty Crops Tour also reveals water, energy, economic and environmental issues impacting agriculture. EPA appreciates the Tour as a professional development tool, using it to educate new hires.
For its part, EPA announced this month a National Strategy for Agriculture, designed to initiate a closer partnership with the agriculture community in addressing environmental issues. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said in a statement that the agency “considers agriculture a producer of solutions to environmental problems.”
The goals of the new strategy include: (1) increasing EPA employee awareness of how their actions affect agriculture and how farming benefits human health and the environment; (2) working with all sectors of the agricultural industry (production, processing and distribution) in developing and demonstrating environmental protection solutions that express to the public the value of farmland environmental stewardship activities; (3) coordinating research and technology development and real world application so the needs of agriculture and EPA can be more efficiently met; and (4) identifying existing environmental improvement measures for agriculture and developing new ones where needed.
#####
Karen Bonaudi
Assistant Executive Director
Washington State Potato Commission
108 Interlake Road
Moses Lake WA 98837
509.765.8845 phone
509.765.4853 fax
Chef2Chef News Desk