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ASA calls on Schafer to save the ipmPIPE, soybean rust monitoring
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By Marilyn Cummins, Editor
StopSoybeanRust.com
10/7/2008 11:45 a.m. CDT ST. LOUIS -- The American Soybean Association is urgently requesting help from Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer to secure funding for 2009 for the soybean rust early warning and management system that has helped soybean farmers manage and protect their crops.
The system, known formally as the Integrated Pest Management Pest Information Platform for Extension and Education (ipmPIPE), was developed in 2004 between agencies at the USDA and the soybean industry, just as soybean rust was swept into the U.S. by Hurricane Ivan.
As things stand now, formal monitoring for soybean rust, as well as soybean aphids, would cease at the end of December, 2008, and the familiar rust observation maps on sbrusa.net would go blank and stay that way, if the site is even operating. Many additional programs in the works to leverage the investment in the ipmPIPE to monitor other legume and specialty crop diseases would be in jeopardy.
"After four years as the critical early warning and management system for soybean farmers to minimize the impact of Asian soybean rust, the program has no funding secured for the 2009 crop year," said ASA President John Hoffman, a soybean producer from Waterloo, Iowa. "Without funding for the ipmPIPE system, the U.S. soybean crop, with an estimated farm-gate value of $37 billion, will be put at risk."
The ipmPIPE has been highly effective in helping growers make informed decisions about fungicide application, ASA said. The system includes a surveillance and monitoring network, a Web-based information management system, criteria for deciding when to apply fungicides, predictive modeling, and outreach. USDA�s Risk Management Agency has provided more than $2 million in funding for this program in each of the last three years.
"We regret that the broken Congressional appropriations process leaves us with no option but to seek USDA funding for this critical program," Hoffman said. "Soybean farmers have been and remain willing to work with USDA. In each year since 2005, more than $500,000 of state and national checkoff funding has been contributed toward this effort. But soybean farmers cannot assume the entire responsibility and cost of this program by themselves."
RMA funding of operational budget ends Dec. 31
The operational funds needed to run the ipmPIPE have been provided by the USDA Risk Management Agency since early 2006, according to a press statement from the ipmPIPE Steering Committee in July. "Significant supplemental funds for soybean rust have been provided by the soybean check-off and through Land Grant universities.
"However, as a result of adjustments to appropriated funding for RMA�s research projects effective for the 2008 fiscal year, the ipmPIPE will lose funding for its operational budget beginning January 1, 2009. Component pieces of the ipmPIPE will be severely impacted by this loss of funding that supports the web-based platform, risk/prediction models, education and extension outreach activities, research, pest monitoring operations, and scientist communication efforts."
The bottomline from the statement was: "Unless new funds can
be found to support the ipmPIPE, formal pest monitoring activities for soybean rust, soybean aphid and legume pests will not continue beyond 2008."
Millions saved by knowing where rust was, and was not
The development of the Web-based tracking and early-warning system has greatly enhanced the ability of farmers to manage risk and avoid unnecessary fungicide applications, ASA said. USDA�s Economic Research Service has found that rust management due to ipmPIPE saved farmers an estimated $299 million in 2005. Surveys conducted by land grant universities estimate a $299 million savings in 2006 and another $209 million in 2007.
"While losses due to rust have not been severe, growing conditions in the last several years have been atypical, mainly due to drought in Southern and Southeastern states, which inhibits the spread of rust," Hoffman said. "We will not be protected from soybean rust without the tools that ipmPIPE provides."
The American Soybean Association said it strongly supports the continuation of ipmPIPE. The risks are simply too great, and the costs too small, to abandon it now. ASA is asking Secretary Schafer for his commitment to continue this highly effective and critically important program.
"Our partnership with USDA in preparing for and now monitoring the advancement of soybean rust has been remarkable," Hoffman said. "We commend the Department for its early recognition of the dangers posed by soybean rust and for the many agencies that have reached out to growers to work together in fighting it."
According to the ipmPIPE steering committee, the risk management system, originally built to track and advise about soybean rust, has been expanded to provide real-time information for management of soybean aphids, cucumber downy mildew, pests and diseases of legume crops, and the pecan nut casebearer.
The Web-based tracking and alert system has cost about $3 million a year to develop and operate; however, return on investment has been outstanding. For example, the soybean rust PIPE has achieved up to a 100-fold return on investment as a result of fungicides not being applied unnecessarily and/or used when soybean rust threatened crop yield. With each additional pest risk platform developed, the benefit ratio per public dollar spent increased. The ipmPIPE has been called �invaluable� by university extension specialists, growers, environmentalists and professional crop advisors.
Sources: ASA news release, ipmPIPE Steering Committee news release.
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