From today's BNA Enviro Reporter -- I don't link it because you have to have an account to view it.
___________________________

Pesticides
International Panel Recommends Exemption
Shielding Growers From Methyl Bromide Ban

A United Nations panel has endorsed a series of exemptions to the Montreal Protocol that would allow U.S. growers to continue to use methyl bromide--a widely used fungicide the treaty would ban as of 2005.
The recommendation, offered in a U.N. report released Oct. 18, provides the Bush administration leverage in its effort to provide more flexibility for U.S. growers. The fungicide is scheduled to be banned by Jan. 1, 2005, under the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer. The stratospheric ozone layer protects the Earth from the sun's ultraviolet rays.

The report, authored by the U.N.-commissioned Technology and Economic Assessment Panel, recommended exemptions for U.S. uses on strawberries, raspberries, eggplant, forest nursery seedlings, ginger, fruit tree nurseries, and peppers.

The report also recommended exemptions for agricultural uses in other countries including on rice crops in Australia; chestnuts in France; cheese stores, ornamental trees, and tobacco products in the United Kingdom; and peppers in Spain.

The Montreal Protocol included a mechanism for exempting certain "critical uses" of banned substances from the 2005 deadline. However, the exemptions are to be provided in no more than one-year increments and only awarded if no technically or economically feasible alternatives are available or if the loss of the fungicide would result in a significant market disruption.

The panel's report and its recommendations will be reviewed at a series of meetings Nov. 10-14 in Nairobi, Kenya, attended by representatives of the various countries that signed the Montreal Protocol.


Debate Over Exemptions

U.S. specialty crop growers have lobbied for a broad exemption, and House Republicans in June called on the Bush administration, which has been strongly pushing for the exemptions, to consider amending the treaty to ensure that farmers continue to have access to the fungicide (107 DEN A-15, 6/4/03 ). The report's recommendations were welcomed by U.S. agricultural groups this week, particularly those representing specialty crops, who fear they will have to settle for less effective alternatives to methyl bromide if the material is banned without exception.
But environmental groups have criticized the administration of environmental backsliding, arguing that the catastrophic risks of ozone depletion outweigh the economic advantages of continued use of methyl bromide, and that exemptions will only delay the development and use of less harmful alternatives.

Even in endorsing some of the exemptions, the report criticized the overall quality of the applications--called Critical Use Nominations--and said several failed to explain "why or where [Methyl Bromide] use was considered essential, or did not provide data to substantiate" such claims.

David Doniger, policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate center, told BNA the panel should not have recommended any exemptions for methyl bromide uses given its reservations over the quality of the data.

"They're essentially giving the benefit of the doubt to these applicants, including the U.S., even though they say right up-front that they don't understand why alternatives can't be used in certain countries," he said.

The UNEP Report Of The Technology And Economic Assessment Panel is available at www.unep.org/ozone on the World Wide Web.

Copyright © 2003 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C.

The power of the farm lobby :rolleyes:

Will the day of world organic farming ever arrive *wistfull sigh*


BTW "why does Australia the driest continent on Earth, grow so much rice?" and be so profitable that it can pay these lobbyists [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

Yeah it will, just as soon as its 'economically viable' to do so (not that anything truly worth doing is ever economically viable). Which would entail that these pesky things called insects and disease have been stopped from destroying our crops without the use of chemicals. Hey, what about those GM crops? ....oh wait their not organic are they? And theres that cross pollination problem too. Shame because we could really use a good alternative to chemicals.

'Cause we still believe we can abuse the crap out of our rivers and get away with it, that and the fact its worth $310 million. *walks out the door and sees salt affected land. Hmm who would of thought cutting down a few thousand acres of trees would do that? I wonder how much money were going to have to throw at it to fix it?*

And lets not start on cotton shall we :rolleyes: using so much water and polluting good land just so we can export it to china or india to be made into our clothes.

Good post Dragon lord!

Hemp for victory!