The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) draft insecticide strategy to reduce the impact of conventional agricultural insecticides on endangered and threatened species could significantly impact specialty crop growers, according to the Minor Crop Farmer Alliance (MCFA). Those adverse impacts could be the result of imposing additional restrictions, potentially leading to economic consequences and challenges in pest management, the alliance wrote in a recent letter to EPA.
MCFA stressed the need for further strategy refinements in areas like conservation plans, risk assessment methods, species/habitat mapping, pesticide use limitation area mapping and spray drift provisions. The letter called for a more balanced approach that considers the practical realities faced by growers and the effectiveness of existing conservation programs.
“As the Agency has repeatedly been advised, some specialty crop growers will not be able to adopt
the listed mitigation measures to achieve the required points or sufficiently reduce buffer sizes to use their insecticide of choice,” the letter stated. It added that producers who rent farm land “will also face increased challenges in trying to meet the additional label mitigation measures. It is reasonable to expect that the landlord may not agree to mitigation measures that may affect the fields and the surrounding areas they own.”
MCFA pointed out that many specialty crop growers are already following conservation plans that limit the ability of pesticide residues from moving offsite. For instance, it noted that the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services collaborates with agricultural landowners and producers to implement best management practices (BMPs) for limiting runoff of pesticides, nutrients and sediment. For 2022, nearly 425,000 acres of Florida citrus were enrolled in and following those runoff prevention BMPs, the letter stated.
Such runoff elimination practices should also be considered applicable for protecting threatened and endangered species, MCFA suggested. It added that EPA should review such programs and, if appropriate, acknowledge them “as achieving the appropriate mitigation level.”
MCFA Technical Committee Chair Michael J. Aerts signed the letter to EPA. Aerts is Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association’s (FFVA) vice president of science and regulatory affairs.
Source: FFVA
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