California growers are looking to the IR-4 Project to help with addressing pest and disease management concerns. VP of Environmental Science and Resources at Braga Fresh, Eric Morgan spoke about a recent meeting he participated in with IR-4 representatives during the Salinas Biological Summit. The mission of the IR-4 Project is to help ensure specialty crop growers have access to effective crop protection materials. Morgan said that requirements from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) can often be prohibitive to advancing new crop protection solutions.
“It’s really challenging with the way CDPR is looking at new products, even if it’s in IR-4 where they do that additional research that’s necessary. It’s been challenging,” Morgan noted. “The synthetic chemistry pipeline into California is essentially closed. CDPR has a roadmap to sustainable pest management, where I feel that by 2050, all the synthetics that we’re using are going to be gone.”
The IR-4 Project has helped secure over 23,000 pest product registrations on food crops. IR-4 has worked with growers, registrants, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to facilitate the advancement of pest management tools for specialty crops. Morgan explained that while IR-4 has done substantial work, California regulations add an additional layer of complication. “Once EPA has finished their evaluation of a new pesticide, it’s good to go in those 49 states. You have to get through CDPR in California and overcome a whole other host of obstacles. That has been a roadblock,” said Morgan.
While biologicals present an opportunity for the development of new tools for growers, there are still a lot of questions. Impacts on water and soil and how these materials can be used most effectively are areas that require more understanding. In the meantime, Morgan said industry collaboration in detailing the needs of specific crops will be an important step in the effort to add more tools to the growers’ toolbox in California.
“Start to bring whatever other markets we have to the table and say, ‘what do you have that is available domestically that you can’t use in California?’ That’s what IR-4 does,” Morgan noted. “Even if we’re unable to be successful bringing in chemistries that EPA has approved for domestic use into California, we need to start to build a track record of effort to bring in solutions that we need to be able to continue to feed the world.”
Brian German
Ag News Director / AgNet West