Earlier this year the Minor Crop Farmer Alliance alerted the industry to a new Environmental Protection Agency policy that has the potential to cause serious problems for specialty crop farmers.
Now new specifics from EPA indicate the agency is on a path that will also affect the cost of producing fresh produce, thereby increasing prices for consumers and potentially lowering consumption.
In April 2022, EPA announced plans to bring its pesticide program into compliance with the 1973 Endangered Species Act. The agency has since released related details, including a proposed workplan update MCFA flagged to industry in February. EPA’s new policy is a 180-degree change, replacing a slow, methodical approach with an “act now, address questions later” one.
EPA was forced to move after years of its inaction on Endangered Species Act enforcement resulted in a series of lawsuits that have paralyzed the agency, monopolized resources and threatened the registration status of nearly all pesticides. EPA plans to remedy its situation by adding precautionary mitigations to labels for insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides and fungicides.
For many specialty crop growers, the mitigations will add significant production costs — and even take productive land out of production. For example: In June, the EPA released for public comment a proposed plan for a pilot project to protect 27 vulnerable species from pesticide spray drift and runoff. The pilot project proposes to require growers to implement at least four mitigation measures to stop runoff, and a 2,600-foot buffer beyond a listed species’ range or designated critical habitat. EPA proposed that distance because it is the farthest that spray drift is estimated to travel.
EPA is basing the pilot program’s restrictions on an overly conservative, precautionary approach, rather than conducting the refined risk assessments that federal regulations call for. And the agency is not relying on the best available science and data in fashioning these restrictions. These mitigation measures and such large, indiscriminate buffers will have a very real, negative impact on specialty crop producers.
USDA’s Census of Agriculture pins the average specialty crop farm at 64.5 acres, compared to 249.4 and 297.3 acres for corn and soybean farms, respectively. The 200-foot buffer required in some ESA scenarios would cause a 12% loss of land productivity for the average specialty crop grower.
All of these measures will increase the costs of production for specialty crop farmers — and eventually take its toll on already inflation-weary consumers, who will find it more difficult to afford fresh fruits and vegetables. EPA’s approach is likely to unravel years of industry efforts to convince consumers to eat more fruits and vegetables.
Higher prices will move fruits and vegetables off the grocery list. MCFA has been communicating with EPA about our concerns, which we’ve documented in substantive public comments. We acknowledge that conducting refined risk assessments is very difficult for the agency, but EPA should not fast-forward to require mitigation measures before we know if they are needed — especially when those mitigations are expected to seriously disrupt grower operations.
MCFA’s comments included examples of how the pilot project would hurt growers throughout the nation, including Florida, California and the nursery industry in particular. Specialty crop growers share EPA’s goal of protecting endangered and threatened species, however, such protection should be science-based and appropriately tailored to address the actual potential risk.
It is clear that EPA’s new endangered species policy will shift the burden for protecting listed species from EPA to the pesticide user community — with the unintended consequence of increasing costs and affecting fresh produce consumption in the process. The specialty crop industry must all work together to ensure that growers’ voices are represented in the agency’s process.
Jim Cranney is chair of Minor Crop Farmer Alliance and president of California Citrus Quality Council. MCFA says it advocates for the use of sound science in government minor-use pesticide policies, so that growers have access to safe, effective, affordable crop protection tools. MCFA is funded and led entirely by fruit, vegetable, nut, ornamental plant and other specialty-crop producer organizations throughout the U.S. For more information, visit bit.ly/MinorCropFarmerAlliance.
