The National Potato Council (NPC) and state potato organizations issued comments on EPA’s docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2011-0840-0035 regarding the pending re-registration of chlorothalonil to help ensure the future availability of chlorothalonil for potato production in the United States.
In the letter, the groups write they support EPA’s efforts to harmonize pesticide tolerances with CODEX, wherever possible. They argue, however, they “believe it is important to recognize that the proposed alignment with CODEX for residues in potatoes, from 0.1 ppm to 0.3 ppm may be perceived to create a trade barrier with Canada, the fact that maximum application rates are not changing should not result in increased residue.”
Additionally, the organizations write of their concern with the agency’s use of maximum annual application rates in modeling to predict environmental and human risk, when chlorothalonil is rarely used at full label rates but rather as a part of a mixed application of products to control disease.
The full comments are available here.
