Attendees during the three days:

National Steering Committees for the Pest Management Centers and IPM Coordinators met jointly in Washington DC.

There was considerable discussion about the future agroecosystem centers and how they should be funded.

Eldon Ortman presented a talk on "Pest Management: A Perspective of Past, Present and Future Programs, Policies and Politics" that he gave to the AES Directors at the end of September.

Harold Coble presented a draft document entitled "A National Road Map for Pest Management" (USDA /2001-2010). This document contains five objectives to be addressed during the next nine years.

1. Develop and promote pest management approaches designed to improve farm profitability and agricultural sustainability.
2. Promote the adoption of pest management systems for agricultural and non-agricultural environments that minimize non-target impacts.
3. Implement pest management approaches designed to eliminate unacceptable pesticide residues in crop commodities used for food, especially those consumed by infants and children.
4. Develop and implement pest management programs that maintain safe, functional recreational, roadside, right-of-way and native habitat environments.
5. Design and implement community-based pest management programs for residential, school, work place and public area environments that emphasize prevention programs and low-risk suppression technologies.

There was considerable discussion about this document and it was agreed by all that the objectives listed would be a good starting place for establishing future directions and priorities with our stakeholders. There are plans to have a stakeholder meeting before the first of year to discuss this draft "Road Map" and solicit stakeholder input.

Al Jennings, OPMP, provided the group with an update on the FY2003 proposed budget. As it stands now, there is level funding proposed for the Centers. This means that there will be no additional funds available to expand the number of Centers. After lengthy discussions about alternate options to regionalize the Centers, Ed Rajotte made a motion, seconded by Jon Tollefson, to maintain the current Center administrative structure of four Centers and have subcenters function within them until future funding can be identified. This was unanimously passed with the understanding that IPM 3-D funding would continue to go to the states.

Charles Barchok and others presented the GAO report of IPM to us. GAO is very happy with the IPM program and its goals, but very disappointed in the lack of documented successes. They believe in IPM and want to have it done well and have adoption expanded widely. Their objectives in the study were to determine:

1. How widely is IPM implemented, or did we meet the 75% goal?

2. What are the economic and environmental benefits of IPM?

The conclusion was that the U.S. has not yet met the 75% goal overall. They calculated a 71% adoption. They also noted that pesticide use has actually gone up. The use of organophosphates has declined, though. They were very complimentary of what can be done, and told the group to just do it. They also presented several recommendations to the Department in its management of the IPM program. To get a copy of the report go to the www.gao.gov web site and download the GAO-01-815, 2001 August 17 report.

Jean-Mari Peltier, Counselor to the EPA Administrator, spent more than an hour discussing her new position at EPA. The big issues she is currently confronted with are:

1. CODEX

2. TDML

3. Methyl bromide

1. Critical use exemptions

She discussed the Agricultural Initiative, which contains pages of new proposed regulations. According to her, EPA still needs to refine how they deal with worker exposure issues, determine how to transition from OP's, revise the Section 18 process, and look again at the prescription use scenario. EPA is emphasizing the Farm Bill as a way to get their priorities met.

EPA has indicated that worker exposure issues are very important to them. They want more detailed information on how a crop is grown and agricultural activities, which are going on in the fields during crop production.

There was discussion of a national pest management meeting. Tentatively such a meeting may be held in late 2002 or early 2003.

Kathy Davis, USEPA/BEAD made a presentation on crop timelines. EPA is willing to fund five crop timelines through the Centers as a pilot program. The Centers were presented with a list of the crops that have the most need for this information and will work together to provide these timelines. EPA would like to see future crop profiles or pest management strategic plans include this additional information.

The next National PMC meeting will be held in Washington, D.C. on February 19 and 20, 2002.