Association Perspectives

Rebuking the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Presumption about Farm Pesticide Use and Oversight

“As much as we’d like to chastise the Minneapolis Star Tribune for its ill conceived notions about farm pesticide use and oversight in Minnesota, it might be more constructive to offer them an invitation instead. Come out to the Minnesota countryside, tag along with one of the staff members of the MDA’s Agronomy and Plant Protection Division who work on pesticide oversight.  Visit with a few farmers and commercial applicators.  It may help provide a better understanding of this and other agricultural issues before casting judgment.”

Farmers and chemical applicators can’t be trusted to manage farm pesticides, and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture can’t be trusted to regulate them. So insinuates the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, in a ‘fox guarding the henhouse’ editorial (Feb 8 ‘Time to transfer pesticide regulation’) that takes its nod from the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. 

The MCEA has been seeking unnecessarily more stringent and/or redundant regulations on farm pesticides in the state legislature for years. The environmental group has been behind attempts to require farmers and applicators to report their pesticide use to St. Paul and made open public record, even though all certified private applicators in Minnesota must already keep a record for each restricted use pesticide application they make. This includes private applicators who are crop farmers, producers of fruit and vegetables, livestock growers, greenhouse and nursery growers, and sod growers.

The MCEA has orchestrated attempts to require 24-hour prior notification before spraying pesticides, even though farmers and others are already required to post pesticide treated fields if required to do so by the Worker Protection Standard, Minnesota state chemigation law, or if stipulated by the pesticide label directions.

They want some farm chemicals, such as the common corn herbicide atrazine, banned altogether, even though it was re-registered by EPA for continued use last year after an unprecedented 12-year review of all science pertaining to the herbicide. In fact, atrazine was one of the first herbicides to be re-registered under the strict requirements of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, which mandates special measures for the protection of infants and children.

Last year, the MCEA petitioned the state to determine whether an Environmental Assessment Worksheet should be prepared for the MDA’s 2007 registration of all pesticide products containing acetochlor, atrazine or chlorpyrifos.  An EAW is the precursor to filing an Environmental Impact Statement, standard in reviewing the potential environmental effects of a proposed construction project (such as a wastewater treatment plant or a landfill) before the project is permitted and built. It is uncommon to use this process to evaluate pesticides – pesticide product registration is not a building project – nevertheless, state officials complied with the MCEA request.

The Minnesota Environmental Quality Board – whose governance includes five citizens and the heads of 9 state agencies – determined that the Minnesota Department of Agriculture was the appropriate responsible governmental unit to respond to the MCEA petition.

Upon review, the MDA denied the MCEA’s petition, detailing state and federal pesticide rules and regulations and environmental review procedures already in place, in a 47-page record of decision for acetochlor, and 50-plus page records of decision for atrazine and chlorpyrifos (www.mda.state.mn.us/appd/ace/recordsofdecision.htm).

This prompted a press release from the environmental group: ‘Dept. of Agriculture Refuses to Study Hazardous Pesticides.’ Huffed one official with the group: “This state agency appears to be much more concerned with protecting chemical companies than protecting public health and the environment.” And it’s upon this press release – from an agenda-bent environmental group that often aligns itself with extremist groups and causes – that the Star Tribune would use as a basis to so flippantly presume to know what’s best for pesticide oversight in Minnesota. The Star Tribune didn’t even bother to contact the MDA for its side of the story.

It is absurd and insulting to professionals at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and its citizen constituents to suggest that the department cannot regulate agriculture and advocate for it at the same time. Shall we question how the Star Tribune can objectively report news about businesses when at the same time, it accepts paid advertising from them? Well no, since we understand that there are different sides to a newspaper – the news division and advertising. So it is at the MDA, with different divisions that promote the state’s agriculture and other divisions that regulate it.  And so it is with other agencies of state government as well – for example, the Department of Natural Resources, which serves on one hand to promote our great outdoors, and also to regulate it. Or the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which regulates the environment, but also has programs to advocate its conservancy.

Just last year, the Minnesota Legislative Auditor released a comprehensive 117-page report which evaluated how well the Minnesota Department of Agriculture regulates and monitors pesticides (www.auditor.leg.state.mn.us/ped/2006/pesticide.htm). Among the audit findings:

• Minnesota corn farmers generally reported using restricted-use pesticides on a lower percentage of their planted crop land—and applying them at lower rates—than farmers nationwide.
• Since the mid 1990s, Minnesota farmers of corn and soybeans have generally reported using fewer pounds of herbicides per treated acre than farmers in similar states.
• Minnesota sets stricter controls than the federal government on commercial pesticide applicators.
• The MDA’s requirements for certifying applicators are generally stricter than those in similar states, and most commercial applicators in Minnesota must be recertified more frequently than their counterparts in similar states.
• The MDA has set standards for the construction and maintenance of pesticide storage facilities, which federal law does not require.
• Since 2000, the department has increased the number of its enforcement actions per investigation. Additionally, the number of severe penalties imposed on farmers increased.
• The department’s number of enforcement actions is substantial compared with other states. Data on ten similar states show that the MDA imposed the third highest proportion of enforcement actions during federal fiscal year 2004.

The audit concluded that “the department has done a good job monitoring the use of agricultural pesticides and their effects on groundwater and surface water.”  Ironically, however, the audit recommended that the MDA needs to do more to monitor the use and effects of nonagricultural pesticides in urban areas, although the report authors conceded that monitoring urban pesticide use is not a simple task, and there are few if any models for the department to emulate.

As much as we’d like to chastise the Star Tribune for its presumptions about farm pesticide use and oversight in Minnesota, it might be more constructive to offer them an invitation instead. Come out to the Minnesota countryside, tag along with one of the staff members of the MDA’s Agronomy and Plant Protection Division who work on pesticide oversight. Visit with a few farmers and commercial applicators.  It may help provide a better understanding of this and other agricultural issues before casting judgment.