Addressing the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), American Crop Protection Association (ACPA) president Jay Vroom says everyone should watch "the treat of implementation going awry."

The big decisions soon to be made under the FQPA - "whether based on sound science or not" - will determine how many and what type of pesticides can be used in the future.

How is this possible?

"This sweeping law (the most comprehensive since the early 1970s) substantially changes the way pesticides are evaluated for health effects. For example, rather than meeting the earlier standard 'adequate to protect public health,' the new law sets a standard which assures that a pesticide tolerance will pose a 'reasonable certainty of no harm,'" says Vroom, who spoke at the 1998 Beltwide meeting in San Diego.

Tolerance levels are normally measured in parts-per-million that can be on or in a specific crop. The FQPA also establishes new requirements for protecting children and infants. In certain cases, says Vroom, a tenfold "uncertainty factor" may be used to figure out acceptable tolerance levels.

The FQPA, because it does away with the antiquated Delaney Clause, has actually been championed by many involved in agriculture. Under the clause, pesticide residues in food were termed "food additives" and were subject to "outdated food and drug laws related to any detectable residue of an animal carcinogen."

Vroom says, strictly applied, Delaney threatened some 30 essential crop protection products. However, a neutered Delaney isn't necessarily cause for celebration. The reason is that the EPA must fill the void left by Delaney's exit. To do that, the EPA is set to figure out "aggregate exposure" to pesticides - whether ingested through eating, or while walking down the street.

Historically, says Vroom, the EPA looked at "each pesticide individually, one crop at a time, allowing additional uses to a label until reaching a maximum allowable exposure."

No more.

The EPA's new tact is to examine whole groups of pesticides that affect a human in a similar manner. The whole group, then, rather than getting individual limits, now share a collective limit. "It's widely suggested, for instance, that many organophosphate insecticides could end up sharing one 'risk cup' and thus many crop uses could be threatened."

The risk cup is a common term used in connection with the FQPA. To understand the concept, Vroom says to see the cup as a vessel holding the complete amount of daily pesticide risk that won't hurt a person's health over their lifetime. Every tolerance of a pesticide adds a little more to the cup's contents.

Short time frames and complicated scientific tests threaten the fairness and accuracy of the whole FQPA implementation, says Vroom.

"Since the law didn't provide a transition period for phasing in these major regulatory changes, it's impact is both simultaneous and immediate -- the full force of law is brought to bear on what had been a steady and sure scientific and regulatory process."

Vroom quotes Leonard Gianessi, economist at the National Center for Food and Agriculture Policy and consultant to the EPA, as saying the task Congress has set forth for the EPA, "to reassess all of the U.S. pesticide tolerances -- more than 9,000 -- within 10 years, with just one-third -- more than 3,000 -- by August of 1999 is virtually impossible. That's less than 20 months from now."

To make matters worse, if needed data on a specific product is unavailable, default assumptions are often faulty, unreliable and "don't come close to reflecting real-world scenarios."

While the EPA is deciding the fates of many pesticides and their uses, requests for emergency or alternate pesticide crop uses are being delayed or rejected -- even when the product is badly needed.

"Just witness the experience of California cotton growers in the past two summers, when faced with severe aphid infestations."

The EPA announced it would look at the riskiest chemicals first. Of those chemicals, there are about 1,500 tolerances. Included in the group are organophosphates -- of which there are few, if any, effective alternative.

Innovation or originality is lacking in the FQPA, says Vroom. Very little in it hasn't been seen or offered earlier. The pressure on industry and the EPA to implement it so quickly, however, allows opportunities for "political mischief."

"Add to this the extraordinary expectations of many in the the environmental activist community," says Vroom, "and you've got a political time bomb that's ticking towards a very real disaster for production agriculture."

Here's how:

--Farmers practicing conservation through Integrated Pest Management or other systems, may lose critical pesticides.

--The FQPA could hinder development of effective, environmentally friendly chemical products.

"Major new, innovative pesticide registration decisions have already suffered a serious slow down from FQPA direct and indirect efforts. We surveyed ACPA members in January of 1997 and discovered 37 new products and 131 new used in limbo due, in part, to FQPA slow downs. That's $2 billion to $3 billion of U.S. agriculture assets idling."

--Foreign farmers, using products unavailable to U.S. farmers, gain a competitive edge.

The requirements under the FQPA, while strict, are workable, says Vroom, if:

--The EPA and industry are allowed to develop needed scientific methodology and data.

--Decisions are based on actual pesticide use and exposure, rather than default and worst-case assumptions.

--The EPA sets scientifically practical policies and time lines for consistent implementation.

"The FQPA directly affects the crop production tools which you and your fellow growers will have available for years to come. The decisions to be made, whether based on sound science or not, will determine the number and types of pesticides you will be able to use."