08/01/08 Potato industry comment on carbofuran ban

Farm and Ranch August 1, 2008 The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced it was revoking regulations that allow carbofuran residues in food as well as proceeding on the path of canceling the pesticides registration. In comments on the affects of EPA's decisions USDA said carbofuran is used on potatoes in the Pacific Northwest. But Chris Voigt, Executive Director of the Washington State Potato Commission says he doesn't see much of an impact from losing the compound. Voigt: "Carbofuran, it is also known as Furadan is the trade name, isn't widely used in the potato industry and fortunately there are some other tools in the tool box that we can utilize. So I don't anticipate it having a huge impact on our industry at this point." Still, Voigt says the Commission did submit comments to the EPA. Voigt: "Yeah, we did file comments with the EPA during the comment period while they were looking at this deregistration asking them to retain it just so we can have additional products available if needed. But as we learned that they are canceling the product. Obviously we are concerned about just the general erosion of tools in the tool box but at this point I think we have other products that can help us through the season." That's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report. Brought to you in part by the Washington State Potato Commission. Nutrition today! Good health tomorrow! I'm Bob Hoff on the Northwest Ag Information Network.