Arkansas weevil officials tout eradication program

The Terry Fuller family of Kennett was chosen as the Farm Family representative for Dunklin County to the 2004 Missouri State Fair in Sedalia. They celebrated Farm Family Day on August 16 with MSF Commissioners Kent Blades, Sue Rourk King, and Jack Magruder. [Click to enlarge]

Representatives of the state Boll Weevil Eradication Program gathered at the Courier News office Friday to discuss the benefits of what they say is a very successful program.

Ritter Arnold, chairman of the Arkansas Boll Weevil Eradication Board, said the program has been completed in a number of states, including North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. These states were devastated by the boll weevil decades ago and were the first to enter the eradication program along with Mississippi. Mississippi has completed the program except for a small area that connects with Arkansas and Louisiana, he said.

Arnold said he feels the entire Cotton Belt is close to completing the eradication program.

"The number of weevils we are trapping is very, very low," he said.

Danny Kiser, director of the Boll Weevil Eradication Program in Arkansas, said in areas that have completed the program there has been a 60 to 70 percent reduction in the use of pesticides for all cotton pests. This also results in a smaller number of beneficial insects being killed by the spray.

Mark Bryles, one of Mississippi County's two representatives on the Boll Weevil Board, said the program in Mississippi and eastern Craighead counties is being subsidized heavily, in spite of the $14 per acre fee being assessed from area farmers. Those subsidies include $8 million from the federal government, $2.5 million from the Southeast Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation and $2.8 million from cotton growers in the eradication program in other Arkansas counties.

He said if the program proceeds as currently planned, local producers will pay $14 per acre in 2005, and then $10 per acre in 2006.

Arnold said it is anticipated that when the local program goes into maintenance, producers in Mississippi and eastern Craighead County will pay between $50 and $60 per acre over the five-year active eradication period. Growers in other areas, he said, are paying as much as $35 per acre per year.

Jay Massey, district eradication program supervisor, said growers in this area harvested a record cotton crop last year and will harvest close to a record crop this year. He said growers who were against the program before have told him they attribute the record yields to the Boll Weevil Eradication Program.

He said in the fall of 2002, one year before the program began, more weevils had been caught in traps in Mississippi County than ever before.

"The numbers we are fighting right now are nearly identical to the numbers we fought in counties in central Arkansas during the first year of eradication," he said.

Massey said that although local cotton farmers have always observed a very small number of weevils in the fields, that is no longer the case.

"The weevil seems to have adapted to this environment," he said.

Bryles said as a result of the spraying, growers are switching to the higher priced Bt, or genetically engineered insect-repelling cotton, in order to control the rising number of cotton boll worms that are present in the fields because beneficials which would have controlled their populations were killed by the eradication program. He said this will also lower the amount of pesticide used by producers.

Bryles said Malathion, the chemical being used by the eradication program, is a very mild chemical that is registered for home use on vegetables and is completely safe to use around humans.

"But for some reason the low rate of Malathion is deadly to the old boll weevil," he said.

"This is the largest eradication ever undertaken by the USDA in a field crop," Bryles said. "This program is enormous. The weevil eradication program is highly effective. I did not think it would be successful, but it is. The weevil is classified as a $22 billion bug. A decision was made in the 1970s to eradicate the boll weevil. This came through the Cotton Council. Legislation was passed by the federal government to allow each state to participate.

"The boll weevil cannot be eradicated from the Cotton Belt unless this area participates. Every effort has been made to get the cost down. We would hope every farmer could support this. It is a beltwide program, and it has to be completed here to be successful."

Kiser said producers in the areas where eradication has been completed are in a maintenance program and continuing to pay assessments for that phase. He said there may never come a time when farmers are completely free from paying assessments into the program in order to grow cotton.

Kiser said in areas where the program has been completed, growers have substantially decreased the amount of pesticide they apply each year; decreased the amount of defoliant sprayed at the same time seeing an increase in the number of top bolls; have seen an increase in yield by about $50 per acre; and have seen an increase in the quality of cotton they harvest.

"We may never get this opportunity again," Kiser said. "We are talking about making a huge impact on Southern agriculture by eradication of the boll weevil."

The Boll Weevil Eradication Program was implemented forcibly in Mississippi and eastern Craighead counties in 2003. Assessment rates were set by the Arkansas Plant Board without any grower input, unlike other areas in eradication which set their own assessment rates by referendum. Growers in Mississippi County and eastern Craighead counties voted against the eradication program four times in a two-year period between 2001 and 2003, and a fifth time in 1997 when the Arkansas eradication program was in its early stages.