Soybean association supports EPA's existing regulation of treated seeds

The American Soybean Association (ASA) filed a motion in court to defend the Environmental Protection Agency's current regulation of treated seeds to ensure the court understands how important treated seeds are to the soybean industry. 

Currently, the EPA regulates all seed treatment products as pesticides and must approve their use. Plaintiffs want the EPA to treat the actual seed as the pesticide, which would threaten the use of treated seeds.

“Without the ability to plant treated seed, ASA’s members would suffer reduced farm income from crop loss and incur hundreds of millions of dollars in added costs from larger and more frequent foliar applications of less effective pesticides, requiring extra passes over each field and additional time, energy and capital,” ASA President Richard Wilkins said. “Some ASA members may also be forced to engage in costly higher-density seeding-planting more seeds per acre than they currently are planting- to offset inevitable stand loss caused by increased pest pressures.”

ASA, CropLife America, the American Seed Trade Association, the Ag Retailers Association, the National Cotton Council of America, the National Association of Wheat Growers and the National Corn Growers Association filed another brief with the court explaining the economic interests in the matter; the plaintiffs believe grower groups do not have a direct economic interest.