University Daily Kansan
Friday, October 21, 1977
G
Pesticide ban may affect prices
Bv HENRY LOCKARD
Staff Writer
Lawrence shoppers will face higher prices if Hercules Powder Inc.'s pesticide experiment is lanned, according to Don Tanner, manager of the Eudora Farmers' Elevator Co.
The experiment, 3956, is known by farmers as toxaphene, a chlorinated hydrocarbon used to treat plants before the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently and may someday be banned if found to cause cancer, Carl D. Emerson, state coordinator of pesticide research.
The National Cancer Institute already has declared xanthenone to be carcinogenic.
Emerson said that he had not heard whether toxaphene was called before the EPA specifically for its carcinogenic qualities, but he said he knew that several other chemicals were called before the agency for cancer research.
PRICES WOULD go on up and grain products in grocery stores if toxaphene is banned, Harris said, because toxaphene is a carcinogen that can control cormorus on corn and milo.
Cutworms could destroy 100 per cent of the corn and milo crop if a bad outbreak occurs.
"If they (cutworms) cut production bad enough, consumers will feel it in the store," Harris said. "But it's guna hurt the farmer before it hurts the consumer."
Harris said mile could grow back after cuttoms had destroyed it, but corn would not.
Several local farmers said yesterday that they had used toxaphene this season on corn, wheat, alfalfa and milfoil to control corn grasshoppers, army worms and cutworms.
Don Palmater, who farms 1,000 acres north of Lawrence in Grant Township, said he had used toxaphene to control grasshoppers.
PALMATEER SAID that if toxophane was banned, the time spent developing and testing its replacement would be added expense.
Earl Van Meter, Douglas County agent for the EPA, said he thought people in the city could be blamed as much as farmers for abusing pesticides.
He said there probably was more excess chemical run-off in the city than in the concession park.
But he said the problem was not as bad as some people said it was.
It's a familiar situation for farmers. They try to prevent pesticides before—for example, DDT.
This time, though, they not only face the possibility of loosing a pesticide proven effective, but they are also, as of today, simply comply with a new Chemical Pesticide Law.
VAN METER SAID the law provides for all pesticides to be classed as either restricted or general. General pesticides are those that anyone can buy and restricted pesticides are those that only licensed people can buy.
To get a license, a person must pass a test on the use of pesticides.
Van Meter said two tests were being given: One for private individual use and one for commercial users. He said that commercial use meant anyone doing a job for hire and someone doing a commercial job more competently than the test for a private use license.
Arden Ott, who farms 700 acres
northwest of Eudora, took the test early
this month.
"The test acquaints farmers with the fact they should read labels and follow their directions."
VAN METER SAID that following
distances was the whole purpose be-
told the
Too much pesticide applied to a crop could kill the crop or could be washed into a stream or pond during a rain and become a pollutant.
Harris said he had seen empty pesticide cans in the river and dead fish floating in the
Harris said he thought the maze made sense because people need to be aware of what is going on.
BUT NOT ALL farmers are in favor of the new licensing policy.
"I think it's just another gimmick to get more money," Harrall said. "It costs $5 to sell a seat."
Alvin Harrell, Clinton, said he was on the job. "He said he had not taken the test but his name."
"I hope they reinstate some of these banned pesticides if farmers are going to be better educated. They'll be more conscious of the problems they do cause," Harris said.
Harris, on the other hand, said the test was a step in the right direction because better-educated farmers would make less mistakes.
ALL PESTICIDES, those banned and those on the market, are now being reviewed by a Federal Pesticide Investigating committee, according to Van
Robert E. Beyer, professor of entomology,
he said he thought the EPA should reintimate all
of its forests and provide them with habitat.
Bever said each time one pesticide was banned, the pesticide developed to replace it was more expensive and more dangerous. The ban occurred because of a pesticide's mammalian toxicity.
He said the trend was that a smaller amount of the newer pesticides had a higher mammalian toxicity than a larger amount of the pesticides that had been replaced.
BUT BEFORE any banned pesticide would be reinstated there would have to be a large-scale public effort to reverse public onion, he said.
"Toxaphen," "Bear said," "is good because it has a long residual life in the environment. When you apply it, it stays in effective concentration a long time."
Harris said, "If they ban it, someone might starve to death. If it be a terrible blow to them."
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