U.S. EPA to allow biotech testing of oranges to prevent citrus greening disease

Ten years after citrus greening was discovered in Florida in 2005, the citrus industry is ready to field test a potential solution.

The U.S.Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved an Environmental Use Permit (EUP) application under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) for Southern Gardens Citrus (SGC) to conduct large scale tests of citrus plants with a protein derived from spinach that appears to help control the disease.

SGC President Rick Kress noted in a news release that a final solution to eliminating this disease may still take years.

The EPA website has the following general explanation about EUPs. "EPA requires that a pesticide product undergo extensive chemical, toxicological, and field-testing before being registered as a pesticide.

Some testing is done under field conditions using commercial application equipment to fully understand the pesticide's chemical properties, safety, and efficacy. Because testing undertaken as part of the registration process necessarily involves an unregistered product or is for a use not previously approved in the registration of the pesticide, EPA sometimes must first authorize the distribution and sale under FIFRA section 5.

The EUP establishes limited conditions for the transportation, application, and disposal of the pesticide material used in the tests.

Pesticides registered under an EUP may not be sold or distributed other than through approved participants in the test program, and use is limited to the conditions specified in the EUP. Biopesticides also require EUPs when used in experimental settings."