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Environmental Information
February 1975
A more comprehensive approach to control of agricultural
pests, including biological controls, can help reduce depen-
dence on unilateral use of pesticides, according to EPA
Administrator Russell E. Train.
In a speech to the Weed Science Society of America,
delivered in Washington, D. C. on February 4, Mr. Train
also noted:
• EPA is interested in the potential of biological
controls because the Agency has a mandate to reduce to a
minimum any pesticide use that adversely affects or harms
the environment or kills organisms not intended as targets
for the chemical.
• EPA with the Department of Agriculture and the
National Science Foundation is funding a $20 million research
program in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques.
• The purpose of IPM is to control pests in a manner
less li"kely to upset part of the ecosystem, recognizing that
unilateral use of pesticides has led to pest resistance,
secondary pest problems, and undesirable crop residues in
air and soil resources.
The speech is attached for your information and use.
The Office of Public Affairs
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REMARKS BY THE HONORABLE RUSSELL E, TRAIN
ADMINISTRATOR, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
PREPARED FOR DELIVERY BEFORE THE
WEED SCIENCE SOCIETY OF AMERICA
WASHINGTON, D.C.
ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
It is a pleasure to meet with the Weed Science Society
today and to discuss the ways in which your activities can help insure
a better and more abundant life for Americans and indeed all mankind.
I speak to you at a time of high achievement in the history
of American agriculture.
No nation has come close to our production in quantity and
quality of food and fiber. Last year, in spite of adverse weather
conditions and fuel shortages, our exports of farm products
totaled about $22 billion, nearly a fourth of all our exports.
We produced nearly 200 million tons of grain with only eight
million persons engaged in farming, compared to 182 million tons
by the Soviet Union using more than nine times our number of
agricultural workers. Our food exports are a form of wealth just
as important as gold or oil in today's economy. North America
now controls a larger share of the world's exportable supplies
of food grains than the Middle East does of oil.
The credit for this cornucopia can rightly be shared by the
industry and professions which your membership represents. With-
out modern herbicides, the bountiful harvests by a relatively small
number of American agricultural workers might well be impossible,
for American farming has become a high-technology, energy-intensive
industry, relying heavily on chemicals to control weeds, indeed, this
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very situation — often involving calorie inputs in the form of
energy which substantially exceed the calorie outputs in the form
of food — should give us pause and encourage a careful analysis
of the true efficiencies which are involved.
Although herbicides represent only about one-fifth of the
34,000 pesticides registered with the Environmental Protection
Agency, they are a rapidly growing sector of the market and account
for about a third of all pesticide sales. As measured in dollar
volume, they actually account for more than half the market, with
sales exceeding $600 million per year.
There are, of course, very good reasons for these sales
figures. Without proper weed killers, as you know, the yields
of our major cash crops could sharply decline. The U.S. Department
of Agriculture estimates that, in spite of control measures, a
third of the nation's potential harvest is sacrificed to weeds,
insects and disease. In short, the humble weed continues to inhibit
the productivity of American agriculture, whose continued health
and growth is so essential to our own economic and human well-being
and to the world's.
In connection with this, let me stress my view that President
Ford's economic and energy programs as presented in his State of
the Union Message represent a reasonable and comprehensive approach
toward coping with our current problems. They promise to help
restore consumer confidence and increase spending power while at
the same time checking the outflow of dollars by increasing domestic
energy supplies and curbing fuel imports. Congress will no doubt
seek variations on the whole package, but prompt legislative action
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is essential if we are to make progress in solving the very conplex
questions of the mid-1970s.
For developing countries, one of the most conspicuous, exports
of the United States in recent decades has been the so-called Green
Revolution, developed by Norman Borlaug and others. The term embraces
not only new varieties of high-yield seed but also heavier use of
pesticides, water and fertilizer. The importance of the Green
Revolution cannot be emphasized too much, for it is obvious that
America's ability to ship food to other lands is now pressing the
limits of our own resources. We must show other lands the way to
self-sufficiency in agriculture. To quote an old Chinese proverb,
"Give a man a fish and he can eat a meal, but teach a man to
fish and he can eat a lifetime of meals."
The Green Revolution has brought about a transformation in
traditional fanning practices in other lands. Dramatic increases
in grain production have occurred in many developing countries,
despite the droughts of recent years.
But unfortunately there are two factors working against this
revolution. One is the surge in world population, which is ex-
pected to double by the end of the century and which is consuming
all the gains in food production. The other, equally serious, is
the increase in petroleum prices by the oil-producing countries.
Not only has this caused major increases in the cost of petroleum-
derived fertilizer, but also is affecting the cost of irrigation
which requires fuel for water pumps and the cost of distributing
farm products.
I wish'I could forecast for you how these problems will be
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solved in the next few decades, without gloomy predictions of
fcanine and further inflation. As the World Food Conference
demonstrated in Rome last year, there are no easy answers. But
we can discern trends, and some of the answers can be environmental-
ly desirable. \
The first premise we must accept is that the Green Revolution
is the product of Western technology and cannot be transplanted
in its entirety to the Third World. America and other industrialized
nations practice'energy-intensive farming, based partly on a shortage
of labor and relatively high-cost labor. The developing nations, on
the other hand, do have abundant and cheap labor which can replace
the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and costly machinery
to a large extent. Taiwan and Japan are examples of this, where
very high yields in crops are achieved by a far greater use of
human labor. According to testimony before Congress last year,
per acre production in the United States in 1972 averaged 3,185 pounds
but in Taiwan was more than 3,300 and in Japan exceeded 4,600 pounds.
To impose our whole system of energy-intensive machinery and chemicals
on those cultures would not only price their farm goods out of sight
but would drive farm workers off the land by depriving them of a
livelihood, it would also introduce new environmental hazards
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because many of these countries now lack the governmental machinery
to regulate the proper use of chemicals on the land.
Because farm machinery, chemical fertilizer and pesticides
all depend upon abundant supplies of energy, the world-wide
shortage and high prices of fuel make it obvious that emerging
nations could not adopt American and European farm technology in
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toto even if they wanted to. It has been calculated, for example,
that if every country poured oil and fertilizer into its farm
production the way Holland does, nearly all the world's available
energy supply would have to be used for farming. So I see a
continuation of the historic pattern in Asian and African countries
of substituting human labor for many of the functions now performed
by machinery and chemicals in the United States.
That does not mean the Green Revolution is a failure. It has
produced many new varieties of grain that are more productive and
resistant to natural enemies, and this trend can and should continue.
Rather than rely solely on pesticides and machinery to protect crops,
agriculture around the world must also pour more research into
species of plants that are hardier and need less man-made protection
against weeds and parasites. The energy crisis already is pushing
us in this direction, and speaking as an environmentalist, I
would add my personal encouragement to such plant research.
As you know, biological controls offer alternative ways of
dealing with pests and weeds in our food production, and they
have been introduced on a limited scale. One example was a joint
project of the Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of
Agriculture losing radiation to sterilize males of a species of
flies, The result was eradication of a serious parasite problem
affecting cattle in southern areas of the United States. Research
is now being jointly funded by EPA, the Department of Agriculture
and the National Science Foundation in so-called integrated pest
management techniques. The three agencies have committed more than
$20 million over a three year period in this effort.
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Let me say that I would like to see EPA even more actively
involved in this sort of program than it is at present. I believe
it important that we not only be engaged in regulating the problems
but also take a positive role in helping to develop solutions. In
this connection, I am going to explore the opportunities for closer
and more active cooperation in the area of herbicides with organizations
such as yours and with other private and public agencies.
As you all are aware, Integrated Pest Management is an inter-
disciplinary approach, and includes appropriate combinations of
pesticides, natural enemies, insect pathogens, and other methods.
For example, you may be familiar with a beetle used in IPM to attack
alligator weed. The purpose of IPM is to control pests in a manner
less likely to upset part of the ecosystem. It does not ignore
the progress made in chemicals or rule out their use. But it does
recognize that the increased dependence on unilateral use of
pesticides has led to pest resistance, secondary pest problems,
undesirable crop residues in air and soil resources, and non-target
effects. In response to these problems, it envisions a more
corprehensive approach to control of pests. This Agency, as
many of you know, contracted with the New York State Extension
Service to conduct a study on the current status of IPM. We
hope to publish its findings in the near future.
EPA, of course, has a mandate to reduce to a miniirazn any
pesticide use that causes unreasonable adverse effects or harms
the environment or kills organisms not intended as targets for
the chemical. It is for this reason that we are interested iji
the potential of biological controls. Such an approach could
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involve chemical odors which direct various insect activities,
hormones affecting the maturing process of an insect, chemicals
to sterilize insects, bacteria and virus controls, and cultivation
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of natural predatory insects. EPA, in fact, is now considering
for registration one hormone insecticide, Mtosid,-which has
been tested in 15 states under an experimental use permit,
and we have the authority to issue other experimental use
permits for such new activities.
I need not tell you that the public has undergone a change
in attitude toward chemical pesticides and herbicides in recent
years. The era has vanished when Americans would accept without
question any new "wonder product" from the laboratories that
promised to eradicate insects or weeds. Tlie euphoric mood toward
science in this country following World War II, when laboratories
seemed to have been our salvation in so many areas, no longer pre-
vails. We have seen disenchantment with long-lived chemicals that
threaten our health. We have grown more sophisticated about the
clangers of compounds that have been shipped to the marketplace
without adequate testing on their side-effects.
The public has expressed a desire for stronger controls on
the use of pesticides, and the development of more specific products,
including weed killers. In his book, Tire Anguish of Change, pollster
Louis Harris noted that in a survey taken in 1970, pesticides led
the list of consumer goods that the public believed dangerous to•use.
Eighty-five percent of those questioned perceived pesticides as
hazardous in hone use, compared with only 56 percent worried about
electric appliances and 48 percent concerned over food poisoning
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from canned goods.
Congress recognized the danger of placing hazardous chemicals
in the public's hands when it greatly strengthened the Federal
Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act in 1972. The major
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provisions of these new amendments not only extended EPA's
jurisdiction over registration of pesticides but gave me Agency
broad powers of enforcement. As you know, the law now requires
pesticides shipped anywhere in the country to be registered. It
provides penalties for misuse of pesticides. It requires them to
be classified for general or restricted use, so that the most
potentially hazardous products will not be available to the
general public. And it gives EPA authority to inspect plants,
halt sales, and regulate disposal of products whose registration
has been cancelled.
In connection with this, EPA will be completing several new
studies soon dealing with various aspects of pesticides. The
first, dealing with herbicides, was commissioned by EPA three years
ago and has been carried out by the Agency's Hazardous Material
Advisory Oonmittee under the direction of its Chairman, Dr.. Emil
Mrak, Chancellor Fltveritus of the University of California at Davis.
Leading scientists in the herbicide field have contributed' to its
sections on chemistry and analysis, environmental effects, health
effects and applied uses, and the study will serve as a valuable
background for our decisions. We anticipate this will be avail-
able to the public within the next two months.
Another study, "The Control of Pesticides Released
to the Environment," is a report to Congress required by
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the Federal Mater Pollution Control Amendments of 1972. It
is in response to the need to reduce the unnecessary use of
energy and resources and the need to produce food at the lowest
cost. It will identify sources of pesticides deemed unnecessary
and v.lll focus on reducing their enployment through an integrated
approach. We expect this to be available this spring. As many
of you know, EPA also is working on a compendium of herbicides as
a companion volume to others on pesticides. A plant physiologist has
been working full-time on this effort since last July, and we hope to
have the first increment published this spring. Meanwhile, a micro-
fiche copy of this compendium is being distributed to you today, as
I understand a number of you have been anxious to obtain it. We
will be issuing public announcements on all these documents as
they become available for distribution.
I might mention at this point that I recently announced
the appointment of Guilford Thornton at EPA as my Consultant
for Agricultural Affairs. Mr. Thornton has a very broad and
useful fund of experience. He recently served as Cottmissioner
of Agriculture for the State of Tennessee, has been a County Agent,
a partner in an agriculture chemical equipment firm, an officer
in two public water authorities, and is well known to many of
you. I hope you will not hesitate to contact him when you need guidance
While it is our mandate to tighten up pesticide regulation
and to encourage the reduction of all forms of pollution, including
pesticides, in our environment, I do not wish to leave the impres-
sion that EPA is hostile to weed science and the general area of
herbicides. We want to encourage the development of new pest
control methods which are compatible with the environment. Because
we are concerned with the quality of life, we obviously welcome
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those advances in science, including new herbicides, that can
bring more abundant and cheaper food and fiber to the world. But
we are charged by Congress with the responsibility — the very
grave responsibility .=-*>. of-protecting- society- ftbm unwanted and
dangerous side effects of modern technology. Among our duties,
we are obliged under law to make sure that potential pesticide
residues do not endanger the biosphere by traveling far from the site
of their original application or by accumulating in the food chain.
Our role is to ensure that essential and environmentally
acceptable pesticide tools are maintained, but that also the
benefits of these tools are not at the price of an ecological disaster.
I would also like to mention that this Society has won the
appreciation and admiration of EPA through your constructive sug-
gestions and efforts. I understand that there are now plans under-
way for lecturers from the Society to visit with our Office of Water
and Hazardous, Materials people to discuss various topics of mutual
interest. You are also involved in what we hope will be a joint effort
to conduct a pesticides use survey. Wa are grateful for your thoughtful
and helpful support, and trust that our fine relationship will
continue in the days and years ahead.
I have indicated today how pesticides and herbicides can serve
as an energy-saving instrument by eliirtinating needless tractor
trips. "No-tillage" methods made possible by herbicides also
reduce erosion and water pollution from sediment and particulate-
borne nutrients. As a guiding philosophy an your laboratories,
ro better one can be adopted than the motto of the ancient Greek
physicians: ''First of all, do no harm."
Modern technology has not always been applied vdth wisdom.
We have found to our chargrin that environmental costs can
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accorrpany increases in food production. l-Jhile nutrient input
is essential for greater crop yields, we see fertilizers and
pesticides drain from fields and into water supplies, causing
unforeseen damage. We have seen how clearing of upland forests
for crops in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India have caused accelerated
runoff and disastrous floods downstream. As Ibsen once wrote, "r"~he v^oods
have their revenge." It is indeed a broader problem for mankind than
that. When we disturb life systems, all nature has its revenge.
Hut we know that with intelligent and restrained use of our
scientific knowledge, nature can also be transformed into a benign
and productive ally. We have the resources and the intelligence
to avoid the nightmare of the Sorcerer's Apprentice, to prevent
technology from running out of control. That is our objective
at the Environmental Protection Agency, and I believe it is a worthy
and necessary one. That is the environmentalist's view of the very
important field of endeavor you represent here today.
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