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- Eco-Marketing
New independent board to
regulate panda potatoes
By Greg Brown
Associate Editor
- The Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association (WPVGA) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) marketing collaboration will soon be monitored by a new non-profit organization designed to certify participating growers.
With its first meeting scheduled for June 27, the Protected Harvest board of directors will administer the standards of the collaboration, according to Randy Duckworth, WPVGA executive director. Once certified, a grower’s potato packaging will feature the well-known WWF logo.
The collaboration between the WPVGA, University of Wisconsin Extension and WWF culminated in a unique agreement. The collaboration drafted IPM “standards” defining measurable criteria growers must meet to use the WWF panda logo.
“We had kind of a three-legged stool originally, if you will, made up of WPVGA, WWF and the University of Wisconsin researchers,” said Duckworth. “The researchers developed an IPM program that has been in trials for about five years now. As a result of those trials, they developed the standards of an IPM program which has specified standards that the growers are going to use.”
The growers that use these standards and want to sell under the WWF logo will be certified by the new non-profit corporation, according to Duckworth. The board is made up of a group of producers, environmentalists, and government officials.
“The whole idea of this new non-profit is to have a corporation that assures the standards,” said Duckworth. “These are people that largely had no involvement in this project - from environmental groups, the EPA and different groups that have an interest in the environment, pesticide use or agriculture in general.”
The board is designed to have this neutrality, so consumers can be sure that decisions are not being made by the WPVGA. The board should also offset any future questions about the program’s credibility. The board is not associated with the WPVGA, it is wholly separate, nor is it associated with any of our other former collaboration partners, Duckworth stressed.
The creation of the group is not attributed to any specific criticism of the WPVGA/WWF collaboration. “ The real reason we are doing this is that other groups have received criticism of not having the neutrality that they need. Sometimes with these eco-labels, it has appeared that the fox is minding the chicken house.”
Ben Kudwa, executive director of the Michigan Potato Industry Commission, said that the benefits that the Wisconsin group is promoting are the benefits that most of the potato industry saw with the introduction of Admire and other environmentally friendly practices.
“This issue has its roots back with the registration of Admire,” said Kudwa. “When Admire was registered for use on potatoes, what it did is reduce the active ingredients applied to control the Colorado potato beetle by hundred of thousands of pounds. It was no small deal and should be recognized nationally as an important contribution to potato production.”
Prior to its introduction, potato growers in the East were having a problem with the beetle. When Admire was registered it took hundreds of thousands of pounds of product off the market, according to Kudwa.
“What happened to the level of toxicity in Wisconsin is similar to what happened in the rest of the country. It happened all the way from Long Island to Michigan,” he said.
“The claim that we drastically reduced the use of toxic products is accurate. But it is accurate for everybody,” said Kudwa. “We are all trying to do as much as we can to conserve money, but we want to also want to be as environmentally friendly as possible.”
The success of the new accrediting board will depend on the number of farmers who sign up for accreditation, according to Pat Boss, executive director of Washington State Potato Commission. But no matter what, potatoes continue to be some of the cleanest produce on the shelf.
“There is a whole bunch of new chemicals coming out right now, new fungicides and insecticides that are targeted, narrow spectrum chemicals that are going to continue to reduce the overall risk to the environment,” said Boss.
“There are clearly some great new products coming out that should benefit all growers,” said Boss. “The big issue will be how much they will cost and if they cost a lot more than the existing chemicals - that will be the biggest issue for all the growers.”
Adding to the new chemicals is the fact that potatoes are grown underground, rarely coming into contact with the products that preserve them. Residue data from USDA and EPA show that potatoes are right on the very bottom as far as residue is concerned, according to Boss.
“The fruits that are exposed such as table grapes and apples tend to run higher on the spectrum, because they are grown above the ground, while potatoes are grown below the ground, “ said Boss. Potato processing and preparation also greatly reduce any risk of residue.
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