Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
UC tradition of IPM, and that almost all of the PMA grant monies flow
back to UC research institutions anyway.
The FQPA as External Stimulus for Partnerships
In 1996, Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act, the first
major revamping of federal pesticide laws since the creation of the
USEPA. It established a thorough review of pesticides and threatened to
ban organophosphates, causing considerable anxiety among growers
and agricultural organizations.
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The FQPA provided an external stimu-
lus for agriculture to develop alternatives to traditional chemical
pesticides, and boosted interest in agroecological partnerships. Perhaps
most significantly, it embraced a systematic risk assessment, requiring
risk analyses to look at cumulative effects of similar chemical hazards.
The FQPA also created funding for alternative pest-management
approaches through the USEPA and the USDA, which have funded vari-
ous partnership activities across the country seeking alternatives to
hazardous pesticides. As figure 3.4 shows, ten of the 32 California part-
nerships were launched within 2 years of the FQPA's passage, six of them
funded by the DPR. The interest in alternative agriculture dating back
two decades prior to the passage of the FQPA, supported by the theoret-
ical knowledge of the two National Research Council reports and FQPA
funding, now found expression in agroecological partnerships.
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9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
Figure 3.4
California partnerships, by year of initiation.
