IFCA’s Payne: Penalizing Dicamba Applicators a ‘Chilling Effect’
February 27, 2020 All eyes are on Illinois this season. The No. 1 soybean-producing state holds the distinction of logging the nation’s most dicamba drift complaints – doubling each year over the past three years to reach 724 in 2019 – despite strengthened label restrictions on Bayer and BASF’s dicamba formulations.
Under pressure to bring down those numbers, Illinois Department of Agriculture has introduced a bill, SB2507, that would significantly raise the fines for pesticide misuse in the state.
Applicators, maintains Jean Payne, President of the Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Association, have unfairly borne the brunt of drift fallout. This latest step is yet another punch in the gut.
“Without any clear answers on how the applicator can reduce the problems with off-target movement with dicamba, we feel like now is probably not the best time to be doubling penalties on them,” Payne told CropLife, noting the added costs of training, product segregation, and insurance liability already placed on them.
“It’s a chilling effect, to say, ‘we’re going to hire you, train you, put you in the best piece of equipment that we have, and invest all this money in you – but by the way, it looks like you still aren’t a good applicator.’ It’s hard to bring more and more new people into this industry when this is the cloud that is hanging over the applicator community.”
We spoke with Payne in late February, a day before she was to head off to Springfield to meet with the bill’s sponsors, Illinois Department of Agriculture, and the Farm Bureau. While IFCA strongly opposes the bill, working with regulators and ensuring the ag industry is aligned are top priority. She made it clear that she understands DOA’s viewpoint as it looks to turn up the heat on applicators.
“They’re as frustrated as everybody else is,” she acknowledged. “But when there’s research out there (on the product’s inherent volatility) starting to shine light on what the issues are, and not just what applicators need to do, are we going to factor that in? Or, are we just going to take the path of, ‘the applicators are doing something wrong’? I do not buy into that in the state of Illinois, because we have a decades-long, extremely good record of good stewardship.”
To her point: Illinois’ pesticide misuse complaints had been a once-in-a-blue-moon event, totaling fewer than 100 over the 20 years prior to the advent of over-the-top use of dicamba in soybeans. Those days are long gone, with investigators still only around 70% through last season’s case backlog.
Historically, Illinois DOA has followed EPA’s guidance almost automatically, according to Payne. Its unblinking confidence, however, has shown cracks: For the 2020 season, state regulators instituted new restrictions that are more aggressive than the federal guidelines, most notably a cut-off date of June 20 (a month earlier than 2019’s July 15 cut-off) and an 85-degree temperature threshold for dicamba application.
“I do believe those measures need to be allowed a chance to work,” she says. “Let’s let our applicator community work under those conditions and see if we can’t bring these complaints down. Let’s not just keep penalizing these people – it’s not the answer. It sends a chilling message to people who want to be in this business of applying products, and thinking, no matter what they do, they’re still blamed for everything. This industry as a whole has to own this issue better than what we’ve owned it.”
Payne also pointed to the nuances affecting the ag retailer that tend to get lost in the dicamba debate.
With 10 million acres of soybeans planted in Illinois, 65% of which are Xtend, retailers depend on their farmer customers, who are the life blood of their business. “You’re going to tell your best customer, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t treat your field,” even though the product is legally labeled for use in Illinois? It’s so easy for (the registrants) to say, ‘if you’re unwilling or unable to apply the product in accordance with the label, just don’t spray it.’
“The truth,” Payne continued, “is that your customer is asking. Management of weeds in soybeans is very important to ag retailers in Illinois. That’s why we continue to spray dicamba, even though we know it has problems; we continue to do it because it’s a service we need to provide to the Illinois farmers.”
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