Congress, think before you slash! Restore budget for safer pest management support, IPM Centers
Posted August 25, 2010 in Health and the Environment
If you have a pest problem - creepy crawlies in your home, garden, school, or farm - who do you call? Before you reach for a can of deadly cancer-causing skull-and-crossbones chemical-death spray, try checking out the advice of your Regional IPM (Integrated Pest Management) Center. These friendly experts, housed in universities throughout the country, provide region-specific, crop-specific, and pest-specific advice to farmers and urban-dwellers alike about less-toxic or even non-toxic effective pest management strategies.
Have you spotted a pink hibiscus mealybug? Aphids on your soybeans? No need to panic and poison yourself unnecessarily with toxic chemicals, when IPM is here to offer reduced-risk treatment options. If the website is confusing, you can even contact your local IPM expert.
Sound too good to be true? It may be in the future. The proposed FY2011 budget has zeroed the federal funds for these Regional IPM Centers, likely leading to them having to close down.
NRDC is leading an effort, supported by scientists, pesticide researchers, medical doctors, nurses, farmworkers advocates, and environmental leaders, to restore the federal funds for these important Centers. Today I sent letters to the House and Senate, signed by forty such experts asking for the budgets to be restored.
Please, Congress, think before you slash! Save the budget for these popular and successful programs that help farmers and citizens ramp down their use of hazardous cancer-causing pesticides.
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Comments
Shepherd Ogden — Sep 3 2010 03:03 PM
Jen
We would be interested to have you talk to our ENVS 201 class here at Shepherd at some point this semester. You were recommended by student Joe Randall.
Best