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EPA’s current draft herbicide strategy poses farmer concern

The Director of Government Affairs for the American Soybean Association says he’s concerned the EPA’s draft herbicide strategy could limit product availability.

Kyle Kunkler says farmers need certainty.

“We’ve seen a few instances where farmers have walked in out of the field and found out that, you know, a product had been vacated overnight and that’s not a predictable way to, you know, to run a farming operation,” he says.

Kunkler says the EPA is looking to mitigate spray drift and runoff. 

“They’re looking at requiring farmers to implement practices conservation practices on their fields that are demonstrated to reduce runoff,” he says. “If you have to implement 345 or six of these on your field, you could be looking at thousands upon thousands of dollars in compliance costs for just one field.”

The EPA is tailoring their herbicide strategy to make it more compliant with the Endangered Species Act.

“These proposals have to be workable for farmers at the end of the day, if what they’re proposing is going to be just so onerous that no one can comply with it, and the only option is to either go broke trying to comply, those aren’t viable options and so we need EPA to work with us to find a a more appropriate direction,” he says.

He says the ASA is hoping changes will be made before the August 30th deadline. 

Kunkler spoke to Brownfield at the Indiana Ag Policy Summit about how the EPA’s guidelines are affecting farmers.

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