AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SUPPLIES 51 



VII. Control of Insect Pests 



One unique use of radiation in the control of certain insect pests involves the release of 

 males rendered sterile by radiation exposure. By 1956 a large pilot experiment on the island 

 of Curasao showed that the screw worm fly could probably be eradicated by application of 

 this technique. Subsequent developments in the southeastern United States have amply con- 

 firmed this prediction. Releases of irradiated flies were started in January 1958 by the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture in Florida and were gradually extended into contiguous portions 

 of southern Georgia and Alabama. Natural populations were reduced to a low level in 

 southern Florida by the end of the year and at present many months have elapsed with only 

 a single report of a screw worm case in the southeastern area where previously they were nu- 

 merous and damaging. Although this technique is not applicable to all insect pests, similar at- 

 tempts are being made to control the fruit fly in Hawaii and the Mexican fruit fly in the 

 southern states. 



VIII. Food Processing 



In the field of food processing there has continued a broadly based program of research 

 and development on techniques and facilities for the irradiation of plant and animal pr€xlucts 

 to eliminate or reduce the microbial population. The potentialities of radiation preservation 

 of foods are still not explicitly defined. The U. S. Army Quartermaster Corps has been the 

 prime mover in this program and represents the keen interests of the military in these develop- 

 ments. Some considerations that are particularly weighty to the military are of less sig- 

 nificance to the food industry or the consumer. However, an Interdepartmental Committee of 

 various governmental agencies concerned with the possible extension of radiation preserva- 

 tion of food into the civilian economy is coordinating and monitoring these developments. 

 Adoption for commercial food processing in the case of many items awaits the solution of 

 problems of flavor, odor, texture, nutritive value, etc. that affect user acceptability, and of 

 problems of comparative costs which will largely determine the economic acceptability of this 

 new technological development. 



Since the 1956 report of this Committee, some experimental food irradiations have been 

 carried out under conditions which resulted in detectable amounts of induced radioactivity. 

 At lower energies, adequate preservation conditions can be obtained without inducing a de- 

 tectable activity. Feeding experiments in which animals have received irradiated foods have 

 given some unexplained, anomalous results. These experiments must be repeated and 

 extended. 



IX. Fallout on Soil and Vegetation 



In its earlier report the Committee dealt only briefly with the formidable array of prob- 

 lems presented as a result of the deposition of fallout elements in soil and vegetation, their 

 accumulation in plants, and their transfer to plant and animal products used as food. It re- 

 cognized that long sequences of fundamental chemical and biological processes are involved, 

 and that the assessment of any ultimate hazard to man depends on quantitative information at 

 each step in the chain, very little of which had actually been obtained. The immediately 

 pressing issues relate to the incorporation into food of certain radioisotopes present in the 



