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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0931.020 1996-1998 • United States Agricultural National Beltsville, Maryland 6 Department of Research Program 20705 Agriculture Service Staff RECFN~ "!1'" August 4, 1998 ey Dote-_-' iL3s~ TO: Hawaii County Council, County of Hawaii, State of Hawaii County Coundl RE: Proposal to Ban Use of Irradiation as a Quarantine Treatment from the County of Hawaii, State of Hawaii, to Be Taken Up at the County Commission Meeting, August 5, 1998, Hilo FROM: Kenneth W. Vick, National Program Leader Postharvest Entomology - F L,- Chairman Arakaki and Hawaii County Council, thank you for considering these comments on the pending proposal to ban a quarantine treatment irradiation facility from the island of Hawaii to be taken up at the County Council meeting, August 5, 1998. I also understand that this issue may be placed before the voters later in the year. Since you don't know me, I would like to briefly explain my position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS) so that you may be better able to determine the degree to which I am qualified to make these comments. As National Program Leader for Postharvest Entomology, I have programmatic responsibility for all postharvest entomology programs, as well as for all fruit fly research in ARS. Therefore, I am responsible for the ARS entomology programs in Hawaii. Additionally, I am the ARS representative on the USDA team that negotiates quarantine regulations with other countries, and I am the ARS liaison to the USDA Animal and Health Inspection Service (APHIS) for quarantine issues. In this capacity, I review proposed quarantine regulations to ensure that the scientific backing for the proposal is sound. I am also the USDA coordinator for methyl bromide alternatives research and I serve on the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), Methyl Bromide Technical Options Committee. I have been a National Program Leader for seven years. Prior to that I was an ARS research entomologist at the Insect Attractants, Behavior and Basic Biology Laboratory, Gainesville, Florida, for 22 years. Agriculture in Hawaii labors under a Federal quarantine that prohibits fruit fly host commodities from being sent to the Mainland unless treated with an approved, efficacious quarantine treatment. When ethylene dibromide (EDB) was banned as a postharvest fumigant in 1984, most commodities stopped moving to the Mainland for lack of an acceptable treatment. A vapor heat treatment for papaya had been certified some years before the EDB ban, which allowed the continued shipment of papaya to the Mainland and Japan. Caoum No. ~3 2 0 , Pile No. C0.11.~C..L L. R AW 4 w ~ 1 Agricultural fief. /vow ssearch searCh service{, ~BtiE 2 Because tropical fruits and vegetables do not tolerate fumigation with methyl bromide, EDB's replacement, most research concentrated on physical treatments, such as heat and cold. Some 13 years after the EDB ban took effect in Hawaii, the following treatments have been approved: cold treatments for carambola, citrus, and avocado (with a heat preconditioning period required for avocado); hot water treatment for lychee; high temperature forced air treatment for citrus and rambutan (near approval); and radiation treatment for carambola, lychee, and papaya. These treatments are relatively difficult for farmers in Hawaii to use and they have the potential to cause unacceptable levels of damage to the fruit. In 1989, the USDA published a regulation certifying radiation as a quarantine treatment for papaya grown in Hawaii to enter the Mainland. Provisions of the regulation included that the papaya must be treated in Hawaii, and that the detection of live larvae (wigglers) when treated papaya were inspected in the Mainland would result in the papaya being destroyed or sent back to Hawaii. This latter requirement addressed the concerns of several states that untreated papaya labeled as treated by fraud or mistake, could be shipped to the Mainland. The regulation was never used to ship papaya because: (1) there was no irradiator in Hawaii and, (2) since wigglers are known to occur from time to time in papaya treated with irradiation, shippers risked losing considerable amounts of money if shipments were destroyed because wigglers were found. Probably this risk alone, regardless of whether there was an irradiator in Hawaii, would have prevented using an irradiation treatment to export papaya. It was clearly evident in the early- to mid-1990s that for Hawaii agriculture to reach its potential, more and better quarantine treatment options must be made available to farmers in Hawaii. At that time, ARS began developing an irradiation treatment quarantine regulation that satisfied the needs of Mainland states for protection against exotic pests and yet was practical for farmers in Hawaii. The first of many irradiation meetings involving ARS and APHIS personnel, together with representatives of Hawaii and other states with fruit fly concerns, was held in Gainesville, Florida, February 1-3, 1994. The resulting radiation quarantine treatment regulation recently adopted by the USDA has three important provisions: (1) the presence of wigglers will not cause the shipment to be destroyed or returned, (2) the treatment can be done in Hawaii or in northern Mainland cities where climatic conditions prevent fruit flies from establishing and, (3) the treatment dosages were established generically for the important fruit flies in Hawaii. Generic treatment dosages facilitate rapid approval of irradiation quarantine treatments for different fruits and vegetables if the quarantine pest is listed in the regulation--no time-consuming research would be required. 3 The USDA under special permits allowed test shipments to the Mainland while the proposed regulation was under review. These shipments were sent to Chicago, where they were irradiated and released to supermarkets for sale. The following lessons were learned from that experience: (1) there were no problems with consumer acceptance even though the fruit was labeled as having been irradiated, (2) fruit quality after treatment was excellent and, (3) maximum usefulness of the regulation for farmers in Hawaii will only be realized if an irradiation facility is constructed in Hawaii. Shipping fruits from Hawaii to northern Mainland cities to be irradiated before shipping to market outlets reduces or eliminates profits from loss of shelflife and fruit quality caused by increased shipping time and handling. Also, irradiation facilities presently available for use on the Mainland are not designed to be used efficiently for the quarantine treatment of fresh fruits. The ARS position is not to replace heat or cold or any other treatment with irradiation, but to add another tool to the toolbox of farmers in Hawaii. Much has been said in recent weeks in the county, the State, and in the local press about how heat treatments are available to farmers in Hawaii and that an irradiation treatment is simply not needed. Vapor heat and forced hot-air treatments have worked well for exporting papaya to the Mainland and Japan. A forced hot-air treatment against fruit flies in rambutan is being studied by USDA and may be adopted soon. The forced hot-air treatment can, however, cause serious damage to rambutan depending on the physiological condition of the fruit. Aside from papaya and rambutan, it is not clear that heat treatments will be certified for any additional types of fruit in the foreseeable future. The reasons for this are two-fold: (1) heat causes unacceptable damage to many types of fruit, and (2) most species of fruit in Hawaii have multiple quarantine pests. For example, mangos can be infested by both fruit flies and the mango seed weevil, and lychee may be infested by both fruit flies and two species of Cryptophlebia moths (false codling moth). Although fruit flies are the best known pests of quarantine importance, there are many thrips, aphids, scale, beetle, and lepidopterous pests that are quarantined from the Mainland that are commonly found on many fruits, vegetables, and ornamentals. Irradiation is likely to be effective against most if not all of these pest insects, whereas heat treatments will not be effective for many of them simply because the fruits, vegetables, or ornamentals cannot tolerate the necessary increased treatment levels without loss of quality. In addition to the three species of fruit, which have USDA-approved irradiation quarantine treatments, USDA is moving quickly to approve five more: abiu, atemoya, longan, sapodilla, and rambutan. A request for the approval of a mango irradiation treatment will be submitted soon. ARS has placed high priority on determining irradiation dosage levels for non-fruit fly quarantine pests of fruits, vegetables, and ornamentals. In the near future, nine different fruits treated with irradiation can be marketed on the Mainland, eight of these commodities are currently prohibited except with an irradiation treatment. 4 Hawaii currently has two distinct advantages over the Philippines and other countries that want to ship tropical fruits to the U.S. One, the ARS laboratory at Hilo is concentrating on developing irradiation treatments for fruits, vegetables, and ornamental crops grown in Hawaii. Other countries do not have research units of this caliber at their disposal. Second, the irradiation protocol mostly lists treatment dosages for U.S. pests, including the fruit flies found in Hawaii. It does not cover many pests from foreign countries, which means that foreign countries that want to export using an irradiation treatment will have to do research to develop treatment dosages for their pests. Radiation is perceived to be something foreign to most people, but in reality it is not. From medical equipment to the containers that hold cream on airplanes, people come in contact with the beneficial effects of radiation every day. Although there are currently relatively few agricultural uses for radiation, that is changing rapidly. I will be meeting with industry representatives in Miami later this month to discuss their plans to build an irradiator at the Miami port to treat commodities coming into the U.S. from South America and the Caribbean for quarantine pests. The U.S. has approved the irradiation of meat to prevent disease. And, I know from my service on the UNEP Methyl Bromide Technical Options Committee that many countries are planning to utilize radiation for many of their current postharvest methyl bromide uses. I believe it is critical that Hawaii takes advantage of this window of opportunity by beginning to export commodities to the Mainland using irradiation quarantine treatments in order to develop Mainland markets. After so much hard work by so many people on behalf of farmers in Hawaii, this is clearly the time to move forward and seize the opportunity that has presented itself. It certainly is not the time to turn away from the very technology that can rejuvenate Hawaiian agriculture and make agriculture diversification a reality. Thank you very much for consideration of these remarks.