Explore the future of agriculture amidst regulatory shifts as Vonnie Estes discusses the impact of the new U.S. administration on pesticides and crop protection with Paul Lewis, VP of Food Safety Standards at the International Fresh Produce Association. Delve into the complexities of regulatory influences, the promise of gene editing, and the rising role of biologicals in the produce industry. Discover how innovation is reshaping agricultural practices, offering new tools and solutions for growers navigating an evolving landscape. Listen in for insights on maintaining competitive advantages and embracing technological advancements in agriculture.

Key Takeaways

• The new administration’s stance on pesticides is still unfolding, with EPA leading decisions on pesticide regulations, balancing risk and economic implications.
• Gene editing technology is advancing rapidly, bringing new opportunities in specialty crops and offering solutions for environmental challenges and nutritional enhancement.
• Biological solutions in agriculture are gaining traction, yet their efficacy needs to be demonstrated for broader acceptance.
• Developments in the regulatory process may affect the registration speed of new agricultural products, potentially pushing innovations to foreign markets first.
• Communication and collaboration among agencies like EPA, USDA, and HHS are vital in navigating the future of crop protection policies.

Guest Resources

• International Fresh Produce Association - For more information about IFPA’s work in food safety and policy.

Listeners are encouraged to tune in to the full episode to uncover more about the innovative strides being made in agricultural technology and explore how these advancements could redefine the industry’s future. Stay connected for more episodes filled with insightful dialogues and expert opinions on the latest trends in agriculture and technology.

Show Links

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Twitter - https://twitter.com/IntFreshProduce/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/international-fresh-produce-association/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/intlfreshproduceassn/

0:00:30 Vonnie Estes: This isn’t about hype, it’s about real conversations with people who are making a difference. Let’s get into it. Welcome to Fresh Takes on Tech, where we dig into the innovations, policy shifts and bold moves shaping the future of agriculture. Today. We’re zeroing in on a big topic, what the new administration means for pesticides, crop protection tools, and ultimately the produce industry. Joining me is Paul Lewis, Vice President of Food Safety Standards and Regulatory Compliance at the International Fresh Produce association, who’s got his ear to the ground in D.C. and a sharp eye on what’s coming down the regulatory pipeline.

0:01:13 Paul Lewis: Great to be here, Vonnie. Thanks for the invitation.

0:01:29 Paul Lewis: Sure, thanks for the question. So how I got involved in AG policy I think can kind of begin to launch in terms of my academic training. So undergraduate and graduate school or PhD work is in the plant sciences, graduate school, plant pathology, and a PhD in environmental science. So my academic training has been in that realm in the ag space early in my career and then from there spent a good part of my career at EPA in the Office of Pesticide Programs as a staff scientist and then as a science leader looking at the use of pesticides, how they’re applied, looking at the benefits and the risks. And then pivoted over the USDA managing two programs dealing one with organic production, creating the standards for organic production, and then secondly a labeling program on foods that are generated via bioengineering.

0:03:20 Paul Lewis: Also working with a number of trade association partners to making sure that our standards are in alignment across the industry. One thing we want to think about also is IFPA, we’re an International Fresh Produce Association. So one thing that I’m working on and playing an active role as part of a strategic plan is international engagement and global alignment. So I’ll be work and I’m working with global regulatory agencies such as Codex, other government entities across the globe working on food safety standards.

0:04:18 Paul Lewis: Makes it more. And one thing is we look at ourselves in terms of the US in terms of strong science, economic development and sharing those points across the globe. Sometimes better reception than others. Sometimes we want to lead, Other times you want to be able to engage. So it’s that push, pull, if you will. But it’s an exciting time to be the IPA in terms of playing in the global stage.

0:05:04 Paul Lewis: Yeah, so that question has a lot of nuances. So what’s interesting, I mean, kind of think about regulatory agencies. Let’s look at EPA as example. Epa, Office of Pesticide Programs is responsible for, if you will, the registration or the licensing of pesticides. USDA in terms of its mandate in terms of supporting US Agriculture and actually having an office called the Office of Pesticide Management Policy to look at pesticide regulations, to making sure, again, the scientifically sound, supportive of US Agriculture.

0:06:15 Paul Lewis: USDA and EPA. The other part of your question in terms of new technologies, I think the issue of new technologies is something that crosses administrations. And this is an area where new technologies such as gene editing is continuing to develop. And what is interesting about this, if you look at historically, I would say over the past five, 10 years, what we’ve seen are petitions that have come into USDA for new gene technology on some of the major row crops, corn, soybean as example. And what you see now, you can this is available on USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service website.

0:07:45 Vonnie Estes: Yeah, there’s a lot in there. I’ll keep asking you more because there’s a lot of things I want to talk about, but from the top down, kind of what is the vibe? How are the major players, the president, EPA, USDA and hhs, approaching crop protection specifically? And is there an alignment? Because we’re hearing from, as you said, we’re starting to hear from hhs, which is not usually a place we hear about pesticides from.

0:08:16 Paul Lewis: Yeah, I mean, I think I touched upon that before. I’m not sure if it’s an issue of tension. I think it’s what I’m seeing historically is HHS has not been vocal from the secretary’s office.

0:08:30 Paul Lewis: Now we’re seeing them playing a more active role. What we’ve seen in a couple in the past few years, especially from FDA in the human foods program, typically from a food safety standpoint, they focus more on the microbiologicals. So your classic food safety contamination on microorganism, they’re looking at now in terms of chemicals as a food safety issue. So it’s interesting. This is an issue they’ve been looking at for the past several years. And the conversations I’ve had with fda, they can continue to look at this.

0:09:37 Paul Lewis: When EPA has a proposed regulation, this office provides comments back to epa at the end of the day, who has the final decision making epa, not USDA in this case. So again, hard to tell a few months into administration how this is all going to play out. And it’s more of a wait and see in this case.

0:10:04 Paul Lewis: Exactly right. So for a pesticide that’s going to be registered or a pesticide that’s going through a re review, again they can provide comments on that. But at the end of the day, the decision rests with the epa. That’s their responsibility. When I talk about this, the EPA is literally the licensing, if you will, of a pesticide. So they have the final call. HHS can provide input, USDA provide input and rightfully so. In terms of they have particular equities that they want to play in this conversation.

0:10:43 Vonnie Estes: So are we headed for a bottleneck? Do you think there’s chatter that the review process for registering new products could slow down? Do you think that’s real? And what’s that going to do to innovation and time for new products?

0:11:24 Paul Lewis: What I’ve also seen and have provided commentary to federal agencies is in terms of the delay that it’s taking for the US government to make decisions on pesticide registrations, gene edited products and the like compared to other countries like Brazil and others. So what could be happening is that there could be technology offshoring and going to other countries for development as opposed to the U.S.

0:12:30 Vonnie Estes: So you think they’ll be developed in other countries, registered and used in other countries like South America. And then they won’t even try to register it here because the timelines are too long.

0:12:59 Vonnie Estes: Yeah, definitely. So when we zoom back out and think about our growers that we service at IFPA, what are they at risk at losing? Are there specific tools or products on the chopping block right now? And you’ve talked about new products not coming on, but are we going to lose products and what’s going to happen if we lose registrations for key pesticides?

0:14:07 Paul Lewis: Let me kind of give you my own example and perspective. So early in my career, as I mentioned, I started out in the Office of Pesticide Programs and when making a decision of whether keeping a pesticide, then it was a risk benefit balance. So meeting with EPA decision makers.

0:14:58 Paul Lewis: You can have greater yield loss of those concerns.

0:15:23 Paul Lewis: So what we’re seeing is a couple of fold. One in terms of new chemistries that have very specific mode of action. So the idea of having a. This is a generic approach. You have mode of action for a particular plant pest, especially from my background in the plant pathology arena, for controlling mode of action, particular fungi. As an example I spoke about again, in terms of gene editing, this is an area in the ag biotech realm that’s just going to continue to grow.

0:16:35 Paul Lewis: Now we’re seeing it for increased nutritional value as example, developing crops that are more tolerant for drought or for a change in climate. So growers are getting more tools to think about and to use.

0:17:09 Paul Lewis: Yeah, I mean that’s a whole other podcast in terms of gene editing regulatory approach. I think the positive part is what APHIS has done is an animal plan health inspection service, USDA is developed guidance and a new rule that’s no longer new came out five years ago in terms of being aware of new technologies that have come to being in gene editing and providing some regulatory off ramps to deal with these.

0:17:42 Vonnie Estes: Yeah, it definitely is. And I, you know, have done many podcasts on gene editing. It’s one of my favorite Topics. So I’m glad to hear that we still see a good path forward there because I think that will get us out of some of these other problems where we’re losing registrations. It’s a great path.

0:18:15 Vonnie Estes: Exactly. So another kind of topic, new technology. Well, not really new, but better technologies around biologicals. So it’s been kind of a buzzy topic. I worked to bring biologicals to market for about 25 years and I do believe they’re finally getting good. So I think they can solve some of our problems. So do you think they’re finally ready for prime time? And are we going to get kind of stuck in interesting but not scalable phase? What do you see and what’s the regulatory part of that?

0:19:23 Paul Lewis: What’s interesting is not only the biologicals from a pest management, there are also a class of biologicals that are in development in terms of applied to the soil to help crops deal with stress management, to make nutrients more available, not a nutrient source, but making certain nutrients available. So that’s another exciting area. Little harder to measure because as opposed to having a biological controlling an insect example. Okay, I see that, I see the effect.

0:20:09 Vonnie Estes: Yeah, I think one of the reasons that biologicals are becoming more prime time is because we can start to measure. You know, we can actually start instead of just measuring yield, which could be anything, you know, we can start looking at like how much, how much nitrogen is there in the root and how much nitrogen is getting taken up and what’s the difference between where I didn’t add this biological. So I think that’s one thing that we can start showing results.

0:20:59 Paul Lewis: Maybe a push, not a replacement. There’s still a tremendous market and a need for the traditional chemistries. But I think what we’re seeing is that in terms of consumer acceptance we spoke about, some agencies are a little hesitant in terms of supporting these conventional chemistries. So it’s going to continue to grow and we’re seeing a lot of the small companies playing in this space right now. So it’s a growing area that we should continue to monitor and watch.

0:21:30 Vonnie Estes: All right, last word. Big picture. If you’re a grower listening to this podcast, what’s the headline they should walk away with from what’s going on in D.C. right now?

0:22:13 Paul Lewis: I spoke, we spoke about biological, we spoke about the gene editing in terms of plant breeding. One companies are developing something called short stature corn. So corn that’s grown at a, at a shorter height so less nutrients need to be applied and still having high yield. So innovation is an, is an exciting time. We’re seeing crops being developed and having high nutritional value, corn, soybean and others.

0:23:10 Vonnie Estes: Thank you so much, Paul for your time and I really appreciate the conversation and thanks for the work that you do for all of our industry. I really appreciate it.

0:23:20 Vonnie Estes: Bye. Thanks for tuning in to fresh takes on tech. If you enjoyed the conversation, please subscribe, rate and share it with your network. You can find more episodes and resources at freshproduce.com I’m Vonnie Estes. See you next time for another fresh take.