U.S. millers want continued use of methyl bromide
A group of U.S. millers has spoken out at a United Nations meeting in Montreal, Canada, this week defending the use of methyl bromide as an effective safety and sanitation tool for food products.
The UN’s Montreal Protocol requires a complete phaseout of methyl bromide fumigation by 2005 in industrialized countries, including the United States. However, developing countries are permitted to continue using the gas until 2015.
Environmentalists say methyl bromide is a leading contributor to ozone depletion, although the gas is found naturally in the atmosphere.
“If our uses of methyl bromide are very harmful to the environment, then it should be banned globally on the same date, and the sooner the better,” said Jim Bair, vice president of the North American Millers’ Association, in a statement. “But banning methyl bromide in the U.S. while its continued use elsewhere merely shifts jobs and economic activity offshore with no real gain to the environment.”
Most methyl bromide in the United States is used to fumigate soil prior to fruit and vegetable production. Grain millers use it to sanitize their mill buildings, not grain or finished products. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said there’s a need for methyl bromide for milling and other uses.
“Methyl bromide helps keep insects out of our food products,” Bair said. NAMA represents 46 companies operating 170 wheat, corn, oat and rye mills in 38 states and 150 cities. The aggregate production capacity of NAMA’s membership is more than 160 million pounds of product daily, which is about 95 percent of the total U.S. capacity.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has spent more than $140 million to find an alternative to methyl bromide, with little or no success.