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EPA releases final herbicide strategy

Jake Li, the deputy assistant administrator for pesticide programs at the U.S. EPA, says the final herbicide strategy gives growers more options on ways to minimize pesticide drift.

“We’re giving credit to a number of mitigation measures a grower might want to adopt to get to the amount of protections the pesticide labels say they’ll need.”

Li says mitigations will be reduced in areas with low runoff or for applicators who have already implemented measures in the strategy to reduce pesticide movement.

He says there will be training and educational resources available, starting this fall, to help pesticide applicators and others in agriculture better understand how this affects them.

“We’re also working on a calculator that we’ll release later this year that will allow someone to run through this whole process.”

The EPA says the final strategy itself does not impose any requirements or restrictions on pesticide use. Rather, EPA will use the strategy to inform mitigations for new active ingredient registrations and registration review of conventional herbicide. Li says that will start over the next six months.

“Growers should avail themselves to comment on how we’d apply this strategy to individual pesticide decisions.”

Read the press release and hear the interview.