PMEP Home Page IR-4: Minor Use Registration IR-4 Strategic Plan - Update 2001-2005

The IR-4 Project - USDA Minor Use Program:
A Strategy for Meeting the Challenge of Pest
Management on Minor Crops
2001 to 2005

     Fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, herbs, nursery plants, and ornamentals totaling over 600 crops are classified as minor crops in the United States based on their limited production acreages. However, these minor crops have a major economic impact with a farm gate value of almost $40 billion, which represents 40% of all crop value in the United States. The top ten minor crop producing states are noted in Table 1.

          Fifteen other states that owe more than 50% of their total agricultural crop value to minor crops include Alabama (51%), Alaska (79%), Arizona (54%), Connecticut (97%), Hawaii (100%), Maine (92%), Massachusetts (97%), Nevada (90%), New Hampshire (90%), New Jersey (89%), New York (68%), Rhode Island (97%), South Carolina (53%), Vermont (75%), Virginia (77%) and West Virginia (62%). Non-food crops ("Green" Industry) account for $10.9 billion or over 25% of the total minor crop value and nearly 11% of all agricultural crop value each year in the U.S. This ornamental industry includes nursery, floral, forestry and turf crops.

          Despite the high value of minor crops, there is frequently insufficient financial incentive for the agrochemical industry to invest in registering pesticides for these crops. This, coupled with potential liability issues from crop injury, often leads to an unfavorable risk-reward relationship for registrants. Consequently, the IR-4 program was initiated in 1963 with the goal of assisting in obtaining pesticide registrations in order to ensure a supply of essential pest management tools for minor crop growers. IR-4 is a cooperative government and industry effort by the USDA (ARS and CSREES), the land grant university system, the EPA, the agrochemical industry, commodity groups and growers working together to accomplish this goal.

          The IR-4 Mission is to provide pest management solutions to growers of fruits, vegetables and other minor crops. People who benefit from IR-4 are minor crops growers, food processors and consumers.

          The 1996 Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) has posed additional federal legislative challenges for all crops by establishing new health based standards for crop protection chemicals in food. The FQPA requires that all of the nearly 10,000 chemical tolerances in effect in 1996 be reassessed over a 10 year period. The ultimate impact of the FQPA on existing crop protection tools for minor crop growers in uncertain, but they are expected to be impacted heavily. Early indications of registrant's voluntary cancellations and discussions with the EPA reveal that some important products will no longer be available for minor crops while others will have uses restricted.

          An unintended but likely consequence of these actions and cancellations may be higher production costs and in turn higher costs to consumers of fruits and vegetables. If higher retail costs result in lower consumption of these foods, especially by the economically disadvantaged, disease prevention and better life expectancies, then the public will not have been well served. Also, higher prices or lower quality will impact the competitiveness of U.S. minor crop growers in both home and overseas markets.

          In the last decade, the agrochemical industry has developed a range of new, safer products. These newer crop protection tools are much more selective against target pests, exhibit low human toxicity, and have minimal impact on the environment. The EPA recognized this trend and created a classification of Reduced Risk for compounds that meet these strict criteria. IR-4 recognized these 1990's trends, and in its 1995 strategic plan focused on the new, Reduced Risk chemistries. When FQPA was enacted in August 1996, IR-4's strategy was already being implemented, and in the subsequent four years over 70% of IR-4's program has focused on Reduced Risk active ingredients as shown in Table 2.

          IR-4 supported the registration in the 1970's for many of the Bt products used today by organic growers and other producers. In 1982, IR-4 started a dedicated biopesticide program. The program was expanded in 1994 to provide competitive grant funding to land grant university and government researchers to support studies on early development stage biopesticides for minor crop uses. Beginning in 1999, funding was also provided to develop efficacy and performance data on biopesticides currently being commercialized to speed these newer technologies to minor crop agriculture. These newer products can compete with traditional chemistries as part of total integrated pest management (IPM) programs and will provide resistance management alternatives. In addition, these new biopesticides can be used by organic growers who contributed $4 billion to the agricultural economy in 1999 and whose sales are growing at a rate of 20% per year. In 1999, IR-4 received a total of 58 biopesticide clearances for food crops.

          The IR-4 ornamentals program began in 1977 to establish pesticide tolerances for the "green" industry which produces nursery, floral, forestry and turf crops. Pest control tools are also developed for the commercial and interior landscape industries. Since many of these crops are extremely valuable and grown on very limited acreage, the crop protection industry is often hesitant to develop their products for these uses due to the high liability concerns and limited markets. IR-4 has worked closely with "green" industry producers to register the new, Reduced Risk chemistries and biopesticides in response to FQPA.

          The IR-4 Program is recognized as a unique, highly collaborative organization involving the USDA (ARS and CSREES), the land grant university system, the crop protection industry, the EPA, minor crop growers, and their commodity group organizations. The annual planning and research implementation cycle is noted below to illustrate the many steps involved:

• Identification of Needs. Requests for specific pest management needs are made by minor crop growers, commodity groups, land grant university and USDA scientists and university extension personnel.
  
  
• Prioritization. Annual Food Use and Ornamentals Workshops are held involving stakeholders to discuss and prioritize the most important needs to requests as previously noted.
  
  
• Final Workplan. The highest priority projects are selected for research based on resources available at the IR-4 National Research Planning Meeting with Headquarters, Regional and ARS staff.
  
  
• Implementation. All food-use field and laboratory studies are conducted in full compliance with EPA's Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) requirements. Protocols are developed and assigned to Field Research Centers based on the EPA's geographical requirements. Crops are grown, chemicals applied and samples harvested for residue analysis. Ornamental and some biopesticide projects require only crop safety and efficacy data.
  
  
• Petition Preparation. Data are critically reviewed, summarized and prepared as a petition at Headquarters based on the field and laboratory results.
  
  
• EPA Petition Review and Approval. Reviews of data and petitions are conducted by the EPA before approval is granted and a tolerance set.
  
  
• Product Availability. The approval by EPA allows the registrants to put the minor crop uses on their existing product labels and make those specific uses available to minor crop growers.

          Since the inception of IR-4 in 1963, IR-4 has had a productive relationship with the EPA (and its USDA and FDA predecessors). The Strategic Plan will continue this relationship. IR-4 Headquarters staff meet regularly with EPA personnel to facilitate minor crop chemical and biopesticide registrations. Several improvements in IR-4 submissions have expedited the process of tolerance setting by the EPA and saved an estimated $1 million in research costs in 1999; examples include expanded crop groupings, bridging of data, and expedited tolerance approval with IR-4 generated summary tables of data being submitted. Additional improvements and coordination are anticipated.

          IR-4 receives funds from several sources to support the minor crop program as follows:

          The current funding supports the four Regional Laboratories, 7 satellite laboratories and 18 Field Research Centers in the land grant system and 3 laboratories and 7 Field Research Centers in the ARS system. Each year an average of 150 projects with over 600 field trials are conducted in the food use program and over 600 ornamental efficacy and crop tolerance tests are completed.

          About 150 stakeholders of IR-4 met a two day planning workshop in October 1999 to offer their input for this Strategic Plan. The following are the results from that workshop and subsequent deliberations by the Project Management Committee.

1. Continued commitment to food-use and ornamental minor crop pest management.
   • IR-4 is committed to placing its highest priority on food use and ornamental crop protection solutions in response to FQPA.
   
   
2. Accelerated the Registration of Newer Reduced Risk Chemistries.
   • IR-4 has as its goal a 30 month completion schedule on newly initiated, high priority projects. This compares to 48 to 60 months a few years ago. IR-4 plans to increase the number of its highest priority or 'A' projects with anticipated funding increases.
   
   
3. New and Safer Chemistry - speeding access for minor crop growers
   • A recent initiative of IR-4 is to develop residue data on new products at a much earlier stage. To maximize success in obtaining tolerances from the EPA, IR-4 is committed to identify new chemistries likely to be registered by industry and will develop parallel minor crop registration data to coincide with those from the companies seeking EPA registration on major crops. The result of this initiative will be new registrations available for minor crops at the time of the initial registration for major crops.
   
   
4. Methyl Bromide Alternatives
   • IR-4 will coordinate a research effort on methyl bromide alternatives working closely with CSREES' special project on this important national need. IR-4 is uniquely positioned to facilitate this activity across regions of the U.S. and with various groups and agencies. Results of this effort will directly benefit the production and management of minor food and non-food crops. IR-4 efforts are anticipated to result in data that will be used to establish tolerance for alternatives to methyl bromide.
   
   
5. Efficacy Studies
   • With an emphasis on new chemistry research, there will be a need to collect and develop data on crop safety and efficacy for both food and non-food uses since registrants lack the time and economic incentive to generate these data themselves. IR-4 will expand its role in efficacy research especially as it relates to Reduced Risk products and biopesticides.
   
   
6. IR-4 Regional Laboratories, Field Research Centers and USDA-ARS Facilities
   • The Strategic Plan includes upgrading equipment and facilities at the Regional Laboratory operations. Acquisition of state-of-the-art laboratory instrumentation and equipment is needed, especially with regard to new chemistries which require more sophisticated equipment for analysis. The strength of IR-4 is in the collaboration and coordination among IR-4 Headquarters at Rutgers University, the IR-4 USDA-ARS Facilities and the four IR-4 Regional Laboratories located at Cornell University in Geneva, Michigan State University, University of Florida, and the University of California at Davis. The ARS and IR-4 Regional Laboratories conduct and/or coordinate the field and laboratory research for the generation of data so that IR-4 can obtain pesticide tolerances. Additional funding will increase IR-4 capacity and efficiency.
   
   
7. State Liaison Representatives and Other Stakeholders
   • IR-4 is committed to strengthening its support for the Liaison Representatives in each of the states as its primary point of contact and means of assisting in the establishment of research priorities and strengthening their contacts with minor crop growers and other stakeholders such as commodity groups, university research and extension personnel, state regulators and policy makers. Additional funds will address this need.

• FQPA Response $1,500,000. Due to the accelerated 30 month completion schedule and priority commodity projects, IR-4 will be conducting fewer projects with more field trials in 2000 and believes this trend will continue. IR-4 proposes increasing the number of High Priority Projects with 30 month completion schedules by 20 per year at a cost of $1,500,000 ($75,000 per project). Some of these funds would be used to establish new Field Research Centers and upgrade current centers.
  
  
• Analytical Equipment $750,000. The new Reduced Risk chemistries require additional analytical instrumentation. Purchase of three new state of the art LC/MS/MS units at $250,000 each is proposed. These units can speed residue analysis by as much as four fold. In 2002 and beyond, older analytical equipment, such as gas and liquid chromatographs and mass spectrometers, will need to be upgraded and/or replaced.
  
  
• Biopesticide Program $250,000. Funding an additional 50 projects at $5,000/project is proposed to support those promising products that are nearing regulatory clearance and need efficacy data in order to obtain approvals.
  
  
• Ornamentals Program $250,000. The current funding for the non-food projects allows for around 600 field trials per year. The increase would fund another 100 field trials in order to accelerate the registration of the newer reduced Risk chemistries for ornamental grower use.
  
  
• Efficacy Trials $350,000. The IR-4 program will conduct efficacy an crop tolerance trials on new products prior to initiating residue trials. This funding would allow for 100 trials per year to be conducted to facilitate selection of new chemistries for registration studies.
  
  
• State Liaison Representatives and Other Stakeholders $400,000. Dedicated allocation grants for each state based on minor crop economic impact and state program objectives. Funding also includes Outreach Specialist position to facilitate communication with stakeholders and the State Liaison Representatives.
  
  
• Total FY 2001 request for additional funding over FY 2000 is $3,500,000. It is proposed to be split between CSREES ($2,500,000) and ARS ($1,000,000).

• FQPA Response $1,500,000. Additional 20 new projects.
  
  
• Analytical Equipment $200,000. Upgrade older equipment.
  
  
• Biopesticide Program $200,000. Additional 40 new projects.
  
  
• Ornamental Program $200,000. Additional 75 field trials.
  
  
• Efficacy Trials $200,000. Additional 50 to 60 field trials.
  
  
• State Liaison Representatives $200,000. Expand state grant program.
  
  
• Total FY 2003 request for additional funding over 2001/2002 is $2,500,000. It is proposed to be split between CSREES ($2,000,000) and ARS ($500,000).

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For more information relative to pesticides and their use, please contact the PMEP staff at: Pesticide Safety Education Pgm. 5123 Comstock Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853-0901 (607) 255-1866 Pesticide Sales & Use Reporting Database Grp. Cornell University 20 Thornwood Dr. #106 Ithaca, NY 14850 (607) 257-5706

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