Warmongering watermelons and the end of NASS pesticide residue testing

The role of the Department of Defense Fresh Program has attracted some media attention on the left coast. Check out this over the top coverage in SF's City Insider:

Even if the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps is kicked off San Francisco high school campuses as planned in June, the district still won't be a demilitarized zone.

Turns out, the school cafeterias get much of their fruits and vegetables from the U.S. Department of Defense.

On today's menu: militarized mangoes, saluting salads and Green Beret bananas.

Districts across the state and country, including San Francisco, contract with the DOD's Defense Supply Office to deliver a wide variety of produce to schools via its distribution network. The program allows districts to save money while offering a wider variety of healthy fruits and vegetables to kids.

Despite the school board's official opposition to the JROTC's military association, its members have yet to address potential warmongering watermelons.

TK: Meanwhile, there is a thread in the Fresh Produce Industry Discussion Group about the Bush Administration's decision to kill the National Agricultural Statistics Service Agriculture Chemical Usage Program, much as funding dried up for the controversial Microbiological Data Program in 2006. Jimmie Turner of the USDA AMS said the Agricultural Marketing Service also has a separate and distinct Pesticide Data Program that is not being cut or phased out.

For the USDA AMS links to their PDP and MDP programs, go here. For the USDA NASS Chemical Use Database, go here.

Though industry leaders cringed and were chagrined (some at the September fruit and vegetable advisory committee meeting) that the ag chemical residue data was often sensationalized and misused by consumer groups (aka the Dirty Dozen list of the Environmental Working Group) Chris Schlect of the Northwest Hort Council said the program was valuable.

Chris wrote:

"The Minor Crop Farmer Alliance, Northwest Horticultural Council, United States Apple Association, Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association and many other produce groups have worked hard to maintain funding for this USDA pesticide data program. We will work hard to secure its reinstatement.

While unfortunately the EWG and others have sometimes misused such chemical use data, this is not a sufficient reason to oppose a program that has delivered good, credible usage information to both the public and industry."

TK: Here is some other coverage of the topic I've found on the Web:

Pesticide-testing program halted

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has abruptly halted a government program that tests the levels of pesticides in fruits, vegetables and field crops, arguing that the $8 million-a-year program is too expensive — a decision critics say could make it harder to protect consumers from chemicals in their food.

Data from the 18-year-old Agricultural Chemical Usage Program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) were collected until this year, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) used the data to set safe levels of pesticides in food.

The information was also widely used by university and food-industry researchers, including a University of Illinois program to help farmers reduce the amount of pesticides they use.

The program was launched in 1990 to answer congressional concerns over the use of the chemical daminozide, or Alar, on apples. But Mark Miller of USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, which administered the program, said the program is too expensive.

The decision was criticized by researchers at the EPA and elsewhere who have come to rely on the data, which measure how much pesticide farmers apply to certain crops each yea


Bush halts pesticide food residue tests