Food Quality Protection Act Marks 20 Years
August 3rd marks 20 years since the Food Quality Protection Act was signed into law. Jay Vroom, president and CEO of CropLife America says the Act is one of the best examples of compromise to benefit consumers, the environment and agriculture. He said the Act provided new confidence in the EPA’s ability to have the regulators tools and scientific access.
“To make decisions on registering and reviewing of pesticide products that farmers use that are producing our food and fiber and renewable fuel.”
Vroom added under the FQPA, there were reforms to the regulation of pesticides for minor crops which he said is very important here in the Northwest, because of the region’s crop diversity in both fruits and vegetables.
“And it was a problem 20 years ago because of the regulatory burden on companies, they were putting most of their emphasis if not all of their emphasis on developing new products and maintaining old products for large acre crop markets so smaller specialty crops were falling by the wayside.”
Vroom says there have been attempts back track on what’s been accomplished by the Food Quality Protection Act. Said the food and ag industries will continue to work with EPA to ensure that science and facts are used in future decisions.
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