ARS : Office of Pest Management Policy Home Page

Established in September 1997, the USDA Office of Pest Management Policy (OPMP) has a mandate to:

Integrate the Department's programs and strategic planning pertaining to pest management.
Coordinate the Department's role in the pesticide regulatory process and related interagency affairs, primarily with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Strengthen the Department's support for agriculture by helping to develop alternative pest management tools that may be needed as a result of regulatory change.

Currently the OPMP is most actively involved with implementation of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA). Our role is two-fold:

Provide the EPA with information to help assure that pesticide tolerance reassessments are based on realistic agricultural practices and the most accurate data available.
Promote development of risk mitigation plans and transition plans, commodity-by-commodity, to reduce both the risk from and the reliance on organophosphate and carbamate pesticides.

This page serves as a path to USDA's pest management programs and resources — sites and search engines tied to several agencies as well as USDA's partner institutions, the Land-Grant Universities.