
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 29, 1990                   TAG: 9003290431
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

BILL WOULD BAR EXPORT OF BANNED PESTICIDES

Bite into a banana from Ecuador - or any developing country - and you could be swallowing residue from a pesticide outlawed in the United States for health reasons, an Ecuadoran official said Wednesday.

"Ecuador, like many developing countries, is not in the condition to guarantee that highly toxic pesticides will be used in even a relatively safe manner," Mercedes Bolanos de Moreno, chief of Ecuador's plant protection program, told the Senate Agriculture Committee.

She said her country has no national pesticide policy.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., called the importing of produce sprayed with pesticides "the circle of poison." While Agriculture Department inspectors have the power to bar foods found to contain banned chemicals, a bill Leahy is sponsoring would prohibit the export of such pesticides. - Associated Press

by CNB