CONTACT:	Andy Norton	EMBARGOED UNTIL: 6 PM, October 15, 1996



		914-378-2436

YONKERS, NY -- Despite billions spent on regulation, the overall risk presented by pesticides in use today is no less than it was 25 years ago, according to a soon-to-be-released, two- year study by Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports. The 288-page report, Pest Management at the Crossroads, contains a detailed, original analysis of pesticide risk over time. It also offers a clear roadmap -- from an organization that has charted this territory since 1938 -- for farmers, consumers, homeowners, government officials, corporate CEOs and others who seek safer, more effective ways to control pests.

When they first came into widespread use some 50 years ago, chemical pesticides augured a world of plenty, free of famine and disease. Far from the panacea they promised, however, pesticides have delivered a host of problems, along with their benefits. Today, pesticide residues in food and drinking water put consumers at heightened risk for cancer, and affect human nervous and reproductive systems in ways that are still not fully known. Pesticides blindly kill millions of fish and birds each year and disrupt intricate agricultural ecosystems, making it all the harder for farmers to manage the pest problems they face. And pesticides exact a toll on the economy, siphoning off billions of dollars to feed a research and regulatory apparatus that only grows fatter, not better.

But it doesn't have to be that way. In Pest Management at the Crossroads, lead researcher Dr. Charles M. Benbrook and a team of CU staff define a program to reduce public health and environmental risks from pesticides at least 75 percent by the year 2020. The solution, CU says, lies in speeding the conversion from the current reliance on chemical pesticides to methods that keep pests in check with an arsenal of preventive tactics and such biological controls as "mating disruption." Collectively, these methods are called Integrated Pest Management, or IPM.

"We're on a 'pesticide treadmill,'" says Benbrook, an authority on pesticide policy and a former executive director of the National Academy of Sciences' Board on Agriculture. "While pesticide use has risen since the early 1970s, crop losses to pests have not declined. Not only don't chemical methods of pest control work as well as they should, they pose substantial ecological and economic risks. What's needed to get off this treadmill is a quicker shift to safer, ecologically sounder and more cost-effective IPM methods."

IPM is actually a continuum, with levels ranging from "Low" to "High," in which each level is distinguished by the extent to which ecological and biological methods of pest control replace chemical pesticides. High IPM, also called "biointensive" IPM, is the pinnacle, relying on reduced-risk pesticides only when other, non-chemical measures fall short. Among the many biointensive methods discussed in Pest Management at the Crossroads are letting good bugs take care of bad, strengthening a plant's natural defenses to pests, and interfering with a pest's mating cycle. CU believes High IPM should be the ultimate goal of pest management in all settings. Toward that end, CU calls for:

• Doubling the crop acreage under High IPM -- currently about 6 percent -- by the year 2000;
• Bringing 100 percent of household and urban pest control under High IPM by 2010, and;
• Bringing 75 percent of all crop acreage under Medium and High IPM by 2010, and 100 percent under High by 2020.

Current federal policies, which promote less-rigorous forms of IPM and set more-modest goals, continue to advocate pesticide-based management, Benbrook noted. Meanwhile, Congress refuses to increase funding for biointensive IPM research.

"The transition to High IPM won't occur by government decree or intensified regulation," he said. "The transition will be driven primarily by market forces, and biointensive IPM will become the status quo only when it becomes more profitable for pest managers to control pests through IPM."

To facilitate the shift, CU endorses multiple strategies, beginning with research:

• Research in both the public and private sectors is now skewed toward expanding reliance on chemical pesticides. Less than 13 percent of U.S. Department of Agriculture expenditures for research on pesticides or pest management in 1995 supported biointensive IPM. Private-sector research in biotechnology continues to focus on chemical pesticides. CU believes that federal funding for pest management research should be doubled over the next five years, with 75 percent of that supporting biointensive IPM directly.
• The USDA and the Cooperative Extension system should emphasize training field-level pest managers in biointensive IPM. Continuing-education and certification programs should include expanded IPM training, and federal law should be rewritten to require proficiency in biointensive IPM for certification as a pesticide applicator -- training forbidden by existing laws.
• The USDA should also offer cost-share incentives through crop insurance programs to help farmers accelerate their progress toward biointensive IPM. Such incentives would let the public share the risk of adopting innovative methods and increase growers' willingness to try IPM.
• Corporate America should make it "company policy" to buy IPM-grown products and use IPM- based pest management services. For example, Campbell Soup and Del Monte already require their contract growers to minimize pesticide use. Gerber, too, shares with its growers information about successful pesticide-use-reducing strategies. And the Patagonia Company buys organically grown cotton for its apparel items.
• Consumers must study their enemy before deciding on a pest remedy. Product labels are often designed merely to sell a product, and provide information that may be biased or incomplete. Instead, CU urges consumers to seek additional sources, including independent pest managers, county extension agents, local and state environmental agencies, books and databases. A budding source of information is the Internet, where dozens of pages on the World Wide Web address the IPM issue. (Many of those sites are referenced in Pest Management at the Crossroads. A sampling accompanies this press release. Also attached are lists of "Quick Facts" and "Recommendations.")

Consumer Reports is published by Consumers Union, an independent, nonprofit testing and information gathering organization, serving only the consumer. We are a comprehensive source of unbiased advice about products and services, personal finance, health, nutrition, and other consumer concerns. Since 1936, our mission has been to test products, inform the public, and protect consumers.