Pesticide FYI from SD Corn Executive Director, DaNita Murray

Welcome to Corn Comments! I'm DaNita Murray, Executive Director for South Dakota Corn. We are brought to you by the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council, a volunteer group of farmers who promote corn marketing in this state, the U.S., and around the globe.

This past year, EPA released a Draft Herbicide Strategy Framework to prevent the exposure of endangered and threatened species and their habitats to the active ingredient in various agricultural herbicides, although not all South Dakota farmland acres would be impacted.

In the proposal, a point system based on EPA’s perceive risk of an herbicide determines how many mitigations are necessary to use a product. The higher the risk, the more mitigation points will be necessary. The final strategy currently has a deadline of this upcoming May 30. This timeframe is unrealistic. In addition, an anecdotal poll showed it is questionable whether farmers could garner enough points to use an active ingredient in an effective manner.

This has been a pesticide FYI. Thanks for listening!