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Full Transcript

Michaela Paukner:

Welcome to the No-Till Farmer Podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment. I'm Michaela Paukner, managing editor at No-Till Farmer. In this episode, contributing editor Dan Crummett talks to Bill Chism, chair of the Weed Science Society of America about how evolving EPA regulations to protect endangered species will affect your herbicide use in the coming months.

Dan Crummett:

There are some big changes afoot at the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA is beginning to set regulations for farm chemical use as that applies to the Endangered Species Act. And the first phase of this process involves farm use of herbicides and that could mean you no longer have access to the crop protection options you've been using. Dan Crummett here, contributing editor for No-Till Farmer Magazine, visiting with Bill Chism, Weed Science Society of America. Bill chairs the organization's educational campaign and they deal with the ESA and how it will affect you, the grower. Bill, welcome and thanks for taking time to visit with us today.

Bill Chism:

Thank you very much for having me.

Dan Crummett:

Yes. Well, can you bring us up to date on why and how the EPA is making these changes?

Bill Chism:

So the Endangered Species Act was signed into law in 1973 and it said that all Federal agencies have to protect endangered species with any decision they make, any regulation they pass. And just out of curiosity, I looked it up. The first act to protect wildlife was back in 1900 and it was passed because of the passenger pigeon. So it's not a new thing for the US government to be protective of animal species.

Dan Crummett:

Tell us an example of what these changes could mean for growers going forward. We're dealing with herbicides, in what you and I have discussed in the past. And how is that going to affect people and when?

Bill Chism:

In the near future, many, many herbicide labels are going to start having changes to protect endangered species. Some of the changes will be things to reduce drift, to reduce offsite movement due to drift. Some of the changes on the labels will be to reduce runoff or erosion and in all cases, they want to make sure the pesticide stays on the field. And I think all of us want to make sure it stays on the field as well, because anything that moves off the field you paid for and you lost the value of that. So they're trying to see if there's things that will help keep these products on the field.

Dan Crummett:

How soon will farmers be affected by this?

Bill Chism:

That's a great question. It's sort of two phase. So two chemicals that are currently registered in list one and list duo, we will already start seeing those labeled changes to protect endangered species on them. They won't be described as such, but some of the label changes are there to protect endangered species. Starting next year, during discussions with registrants, new label changes will come about to reduce runoff, drift, et cetera.

We probably won't see very many of those until 2025. It's just by the time you change a label and it goes through the regulatory process, it's almost a full season later that you start seeing those changes. So I don't think in some cases with a brand new pesticide coming through, they might see the changes earlier, but I think the majority of label changes we'll start seeing in 2025. So this is a great time to be talking about this and to be telling people what to expect so they can start thinking about these changes.

Dan Crummett:

Right. What can growers do to be proactive on this? What can they do to mitigate their operation ahead of the game if possible?

Bill Chism:

Yeah. That's a great question, too, because this is going to be ... I think of it as a sea change for agriculture. Growers are now going to have to think about how far am I from endangered species? There's some endangered species that don't move. There's some that are migratory that could come over your field. How close am I to endangered species? We've never had to think about that before.

We're also going to have to think about ways to incorporate conservation practices. So in the current proposal from the EPA, in order to reduce runoff and erosion, they want you to do additional conservation practices. Things like cover crops, terraced fields, catchment basins to catch runoff, et cetera, et cetera. For drift control, they want you to start thinking about, do you have enough buffer distance? So if that pesticide moves off the field, it won't end up in a waterway or habitat. Do you have trees around your field that would help reduce drift and that sort of thing.

So we're now going to have to, as users of these products, start thinking about those things that we never thought about. This is going to be on a field-by-field basis. So for an average grower in Iowa who may have 10 different fields, he's going to have to think about the conservation practices and the drift potential in each field. If you're a crop consultant that has, oh my God, 100's of these fields, you're now going to have to start thinking about these on a field-by-field basis.

So, I think, some way of integrating and having that information on your current conservation practices at your fingertips so that when you're making herbicide decisions you can look at what conservation practices are already in place, you need to start thinking about that. And clearly some conservation practices, you don't just move into cover crops without hiccups along the way. So some of these are going to be major changes for growers. And so they need to start thinking about, not only can I get that information quickly, but what are some of the trade-offs by going to some of these conservation practices.

Dan Crummett:

You mentioned it's going to be a field-by-field proposition with many variables given any given field. If I'm a grower in ... I'm in Oklahoma. Say I'm sitting in central Oklahoma and there are endangered species in the panhandle of Oklahoma, does that affect me? How does this work?

Bill Chism:

In the current language as described in the herbicide strategy, they talk about fields that are more than a thousand feet from habitat for either critical habitat or the habitat of that species. So if you're more than 1,000 feet away, you would not have very big impacts. So knowing where these species are would be helpful and sort of getting a feel for how close are they and that sort of thing is really important.

Dan Crummett:

That brings up a question that you alluded to earlier. The growers need information at their fingertips. What's being done along that line? How does a grower identify his or her operation in reference to nearby endangered species? How do they look for, "Okay, what can I do to mitigate this in my operation?"

Bill Chism:

Yeah, that's another great question. The EPA has a website called Bulletins Live! Two. Unfortunately, the list ... Excuse me, the address is this long.

Dan Crummett:

Yes.

Bill Chism:

Bulletins Live! Two. You can go on that, describe your herbicide name. You have to have the EPA registration number because every herbicide's a little different. In that website, you can give your field location and it will tell you whether there's restrictions on that pesticide or not. One of the things the WSSA is working on is a communications webpage and we're hoping to have not only just general information, some short presentations, definitions, but also links to the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fishery Service.

They have maps of where these species are. They also have lists by state, so that if grower wants to be proactive on this, he can start looking up his state and seeing what species might be impacted and try and figure out where they're located.

The other thing I personally am really big on is, unless you actually know your state has some of these species, it's hard to understand how to be protective of them. So those lists by the services are great for giving you snapshots of what the species looks like and describing them. Every county in the US is going to have some endangered species on it at one time in the season or another, either through species that live there or migratory species. So we're all going to potentially have some impact.

Michaela Paukner:

I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, Yetter Farm Equipment. Yetter is your answer for success in the face of ever-changing production agriculture challenges. Yetter offers a full lineup of all planter attachments designed to perform in varying planting conditions. Yetter products maximize your inputs, save you time and deliver return on your investment. Visit them@yetterco.com. That's Y-E-T-T-E-R-C-O.com. Now, let's get back to the conversation.

Dan Crummett:

What work has the WSSA done with EPA as far as trying to improve the timely access of timely information on this? I think you're working closely with them to see that agriculture has a place at the table and what's going on in that realm?

Bill Chism:

That's another great question. One of our committee members, Dr. Stanley Culpepper in Georgia ... And at the time his grad student worked with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to look at two salamander species found in Georgia. And at the time for the enlist duo label, I think they had almost a million in counties where you could not use that product because of being protective of the salamander species. They worked with the Fish and Wildlife Service and did mapping of where these species are actually found and they're found in a confluence of semi-aquatic areas and forested areas.

After going through and remapping, they got the number of impacted acres down to, I believe, a little less than 4,000. So they went from almost a million acres down to 4,000. So they're going to be working with the EPA and the services to try and see if there's easier ways to ground truth the maps to speed up this process. Because if they don't have better information available, the EPA is being very conservative in taking entire counties off of the label. In the future, we're hoping there'll be ways to speed up the process of finding the appropriate portions of these counties that need to be protected.

Dan Crummett:

In some earlier conversations and communication, you told me that this is only the beginning. We're dealing with herbicides, but we have other things coming down the pipeline.

Bill Chism:

Yeah. There was a recent lawsuit and in that lawsuit the EPA was directed to speed up streamline and speed up the review process between them and the services. In that, there were some things set up. So the first one that just came out was the Vulnerable Species Pilot Program. They looked at 27 listed species and tried to find ways they could be protective of those species on a broader basis and not have to look at every species individually for every single pesticide made in America.

So as part of that, they developed maps. And those maps have pesticide usage limitation areas and those are initial thoughts or locations of where these species are found. The next step is, they're working on the herbicide strategy and on that they will be releasing the final version, I believe, in May of 2024. And that's ways, again, to streamline the review process to speed this up. That will be released in 2024. We think after that's released, new labels will start coming through and incorporating those protections.

After that, they're going to work on the insecticide strategy and there should be a final of that by January of 2025. After that will be a fungicide strategy. They don't have the dates set yet, but it'll probably be in late 2025 or sometime in 2026. And then the final one is the rodenticide strategy and they should have that one available very soon. So all the major classes of pesticides will have ways available to streamline how they incorporate protections for those species. So if you think, well, it won't hit me, sooner or later, most growers are going to be using one of those products or another. So I think all of us will be impacted very soon.

Dan Crummett:

And as you said, with every county having one or more ESA affected species, it's going to come home soon. So what recommendations did you give farmers trying to align their work with this as far as websites, farming practices, farmer organization efforts, that kind of thing? Crop consultant groups and so forth, because they're going to be heavily invested in this and affected by it.

Bill Chism:

Yeah. One of the things I should mention is the herbicide strategy pointed out that if you are actively working with a technical expert to develop conservation practices on your field, you may not have to have any additional conservation mitigation actions on your part. So clearly the NRCS, many crop consultants work actively to develop conservation practices on the field. So hopefully contacting them and seeing what their understanding is and versus what you're doing would be important.

The USDA has hosted a number of webinars on this topic and will continue to do that to explain what's happening with pesticide regulations to protect endangered species. The EPA is working on a communication plan for this and I'm not sure when that will be available, but I think it's going to be available very soon. So they're developing communications materials and that sort of thing that should be helpful to the user.

Many commodity groups have been following this very closely and, in fact, the herbicide strategy got comments from many of them, giving their insights and opinions on what's taking place and I know those groups are communicating that to their members as well. As I said, the WSSA is working on a communications website and we hope to make that available in January of 2024.

Yesterday, for example, the Council on Agricultural Science and Technology Cast had a webinar on this topic and they're going to have, I believe, five more webinars and start releasing white papers on this topic, on the impacts of this on agriculture. So I think the information is just starting to flow and hopefully it'll be the kind of information directed at growers and getting them some background information and understanding of what's about to happen.

Dan Crummett:

Okay. Sounds like we're right on the cusp of this and I appreciate your time very much for this and taking time to explain it. I know there's going to be a lot of confusion and there's going to be a lot of rumors. But I look forward to working with you in the future, particularly as this expands into insecticides and fungicides and the rest of FIFRA, for that matter. And it seems like we're all going to have a lot of work to do over the next four or five years, so I appreciate it and thank you very much.

Bill Chism:

You're welcome. Thank you.

Dan Crummett:

You bet. Thank you.

Michaela Paukner:

Thanks to Bill Chism and Dan Crummett for today's conversation. A video and transcript for this episode are available at no-tillfarmer.com/podcasts and you can read Dan Crummett's full article about the EPAs proposed herbicide strategy in the February, 2024 issue of No-Till Farmer. Many thanks to Yetter Farm Equipment for helping to make this No-Till podcast series possible. From all of us here at No-Till Farmer, I'm Michaela Paukner. Thanks for listening.