Soy growers seek comment period on EPA pesticide ruling

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently received a letter from the American Soybean Association (ASA) and other agricultural groups asking for a separate comment period regarding the new practice of evaluating pesticide products.

The EPA included in the new review practices a recent Blanket FQPA 10X Determination on organophosphate pesticides in the agency’s "Chlorpyrifos-Methyl: Human Health Draft Risk Assessment (DRA) for Registration Review."

The new standard is completely different than the EPA’s policy of pesticides and crop protection products.

The letter said the EPA did not share the approach with growers before implementing the new practices, causing problems with registering pesticides and undue stress on farmers due to unattainable high standards. The policy change may also cause pest control to be unavailable, casting unwarranted doubt on crop protection products.

“We believe this additional burden is unnecessary, unreasonable and unwarranted – especially when there has been no opportunity to comment on what constitutes a major underlying policy change,” the letter said. “Not only would the Blanket FQPA Determination for [organophosphate] pesticides constitute a dramatic shift in policy, we are concerned that this will have harmful effects on the continued registration of these pesticides.”