Yesterday the American Soybean Association partnered with a coalition of major farm groups to issue a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy pressing the EPA to withdraw its request to vacate the registration for Dow’s Enlist Duo herbicide, stressing the importance of and highlighting the urgent need for new modes of action to tackle resistant weeds on farms across the country.
“U.S. growers have an urgent need for a new mode of action as these regulatory delays have exacerbated the proliferation of hard-to-control weed populations. These delays are necessitating more intense weed control practices that complicate environmental management,” wrote the groups in the letter. “Herbicide tolerant cropping systems allow growers to more efficiently use active ingredients for weed control while providing environmental benefits like reduced tillage that improves soil heath and limits nutrient run-off. Additional herbicide modes of action will help proactively manage weed herbicide resistance.”
The groups cited the already-exhaustive review undertaken by both USDA and EPA on the Enlist family of products.
“Among the many new requirements for registration of Enlist Duo at EPA was an unprecedented review of the potential effects of the product on threatened and endangered species. After an exhaustive state-by-state review, EPA concluded that use of Enlist Duo in accordance with the product label, which imposed a 30-foot wind directional buffer zone, would have no effect on threatened and endangered species. This review took place on a product that simply combines two herbicides that have each been on the market for decades…” wrote the groups.
The groups also took issue with EPA’s reference to additional and new data in its decision to reevaluate Enlist Duo.
“There will always be new information to be considered about products EPA has registered. Congress has recognized this, and included in FIFRA several vehicles for reviewing products. But none of these vehicles authorize the agency to withdraw a previously approved product in the absence of an ‘imminent hazard,’” wrote the groups. “… No one has suggested that the information EPA now is considering with Enlist Duo comes close to meeting that threshold.”
Joining ASA on the letter is the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Corn Growers Association, National Cotton Council and the National Farmers Union.
8 Comments on “Ag Groups Respond To EPA Scrutiny of Enlist Duo”
The President’s Cancer Panel report recommends that consumers choose products raised without pesticides/herbicides to reduce cancer risk. This is one of many reasons why I do not support the Enlist Duo technology. It leads us down a path of yet more herbicide resistance and increased herbicide use that benefits a few manufacturers at the expense of public health. Moving forward, let’s make environmental protection and our children’s health our number one priority. There is a growing demand for organic soybeans, and we need more U.S. farmers raising organic soybeans to meat our national demand — at a premium price, to boot.
Melinda Hemmelgarn, M.S., R.D.
This is just one more indication of human laziness and how “chemical-based” farming practices encourages lethargy. Many farmers are wanting to do less and earn more. Let’s face it, calling your agronomist or local co-op to order application of some sort of chemical is a lot easier than developing a plan to use cover crops to meet the same goal. This line of weed control thinking is encouraged by companies that develop and sell various chemicals…in this case, herbicides. Are they really concerned about soil and beneficial insect health? I do not think so.
If you read their letter carefully, they are making it seem as though weed control can only happen by chemically applying new types of chemicals. This is de facto the main problem in the logic. They also seem to make it sound as though they are being environmentally friendly by claiming that there will be less tillage.
Chemicals are not the modern answer in sustainable farming…not even close. What we need is greater adoption of conservation-based cash crop rotations, varietal cover crop applications and major reduction, if not elimination, of synthetic fertilizer use. All of this is possible without using synthetic chemicals. Will we control all of the weeds? No. Is that necessary to be successful? No.
🙂
The President’s Cancer Panel report recommends that consumers choose products raised without pesticides/herbicides to reduce cancer risk. This is one of many reasons why I do not support the Enlist Duo technology. It leads us down a path of yet more herbicide resistance and increased herbicide use that benefits a few manufacturers at the expense of public health. Moving forward, let’s make environmental protection and our children’s health our number one priority. There is a growing demand for organic soybeans, and we need more U.S. farmers raising organic soybeans to meat our national demand — at a premium price, to boot.
Melinda Hemmelgarn, M.S., R.D.
This is just one more indication of human laziness and how “chemical-based” farming practices encourages lethargy. Many farmers are wanting to do less and earn more. Let’s face it, calling your agronomist or local co-op to order application of some sort of chemical is a lot easier than developing a plan to use cover crops to meet the same goal. This line of weed control thinking is encouraged by companies that develop and sell various chemicals…in this case, herbicides. Are they really concerned about soil and beneficial insect health? I do not think so.
If you read their letter carefully, they are making it seem as though weed control can only happen by chemically applying new types of chemicals. This is de facto the main problem in the logic. They also seem to make it sound as though they are being environmentally friendly by claiming that there will be less tillage.
Chemicals are not the modern answer in sustainable farming…not even close. What we need is greater adoption of conservation-based cash crop rotations, varietal cover crop applications and major reduction, if not elimination, of synthetic fertilizer use. All of this is possible without using synthetic chemicals. Will we control all of the weeds? No. Is that necessary to be successful? No.
🙂
As a farmer who has suffered years of damage from neighbors’ chemical treatments, I am shocked that these commodity groups and farm organizations don’t see the folly in continuing to ramp up chemical use. We are losing entire species of insects, including pollinators, due to overuse of pesticides and we have many weeds that are impervious to herbicides. The only winners are shareholders in chemical companies, and they’re only winners for a few years. The damage goes on forever. Thank you, EPA for rescinding approval of Enlist Duo and I hope you will continue to study this problem and perhaps rescind approval of many more chemicals.
As a farmer who has suffered years of damage from neighbors’ chemical treatments, I am shocked that these commodity groups and farm organizations don’t see the folly in continuing to ramp up chemical use. We are losing entire species of insects, including pollinators, due to overuse of pesticides and we have many weeds that are impervious to herbicides. The only winners are shareholders in chemical companies, and they’re only winners for a few years. The damage goes on forever. Thank you, EPA for rescinding approval of Enlist Duo and I hope you will continue to study this problem and perhaps rescind approval of many more chemicals.
Progress and entrepreneurship in science that solves problems is very important. But sometimes, in this case of GMO-based agriculture, we are seeing how this science has failed to meet it’s goals of solving a problem. Just the opposite has happened. GMO technology has created a dire problem of Super Weeds that require ever more toxic chemicals to control. As we have discovered over the past 20 years, nature always has and always will have the upper hand as it adapts to the poisons that GMO technology depends on.
Enlist Duo is a wrong headed approach to the Super Weed problem. We can be assured that nature will prevail over this more toxic chemical concoction too and so we continue to dig ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole.
We are also seeing the demise of a GMO-based business model that will not go quietly into the night despite it’s negative impact to the health of our environment and people. As the saying goes, “When you find yourself in a hole … stop digging.”
Progress and entrepreneurship in science that solves problems is very important. But sometimes, in this case of GMO-based agriculture, we are seeing how this science has failed to meet it’s goals of solving a problem. Just the opposite has happened. GMO technology has created a dire problem of Super Weeds that require ever more toxic chemicals to control. As we have discovered over the past 20 years, nature always has and always will have the upper hand as it adapts to the poisons that GMO technology depends on.
Enlist Duo is a wrong headed approach to the Super Weed problem. We can be assured that nature will prevail over this more toxic chemical concoction too and so we continue to dig ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole.
We are also seeing the demise of a GMO-based business model that will not go quietly into the night despite it’s negative impact to the health of our environment and people. As the saying goes, “When you find yourself in a hole … stop digging.”