PURPOSE

The Postharvest Chemical Use survey provides detailed estimates of postharvest chemical usage on selected farm commodities by off-farm storage facilities. The survey addresses food safety requirements of the Food Quality Protection Act.

COVERAGE

The population of interest is off-farm storage facilities such as grain elevators, terminals, warehouse, and other facilities that handle the commodities of interest during the survey year.

CONTENT

Off-farm storage facility operators provide data on the quantity of the commodities of interest handled during the year, the amount of the commodities that were treated with chemical applications, the name, amount, and method of application of all chemical products applied, and data on their operation’s pest management practices.

FREQUENCY

The Postharvest Chemical Use survey (PHCUS) is conducted on an annual basis. The commodities surveyed change from year to year. Commodities are selected to be consist with the Pesticide Data Program, particularly the Agricultural Reseach Service’s Pesticide Residue summaries. Commodities included in previous PHCUS were apples, potatoes, off-farm corn and wheat storages, off-farm oats and soybean storages, off-farm rice and peanut storages, and off-farm oranges.

METHODS

Off-farm storage facilities that have reported positive stocks during the year for the commodities of interest on other NASS stocks or storage surveys are eligible to be sampled for the PHCUS. A personal enumeration survey is used to collect the information needed on the PHCUS. Given the complexity of data collection for chemical applications, a time frame of approximately two months is used.

PRODUCTS

In general, the Agricultural Chemical Usage, Postharvest Applications results are published in the month of March following data collection and summarization. Major tabulations include percentage of the commodity treated with postharvest chemical applications by commodity and state, total amount of active ingredients applied by commodity and state, and the percent of operations conducting specific pest management practices by commodity and state.

USES

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Economic Research Service (ERS) use the data published from this survey for product registration issues, risk assessments, benefit assessments, and for marketing commodities at state, national, and international levels. As stated earlier, these data are used in the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) decision making process for product registration, re-registration, and product alternatives.

SPECIAL FEATURES

RELATED PROGRAMS

Fruit and Vegetable Chemical Use
Agricultural Resource Management, Phase II