A New Era of Pesticide Regulation

What does EPA‘s final Herbicide Strategy mean for farmers?

- Adrienne Held Agronomy

In late August 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the final version of its Herbicide Strategy. The strategy is intended to bring the agency into compliance with its obligations under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to protect more than 900 federally endangered and threatened species from herbicides' potential impacts.

As a result, farmers can expect to see changes in drift and runoff mitigation measures required on labels, as products are registered and reregistered moving forward. This requires a shift in how pesticides are to be managed, down to the field level.

What Changed From the Draft?

The EPA released its The strategy's first draft in July 2023, receiving over 18,000 comments from the public. The agency spent the next year engaging with farmers, researchers, and agriculture stakeholders to make improvements to the final strategy.

Both versions discussed reducing spray drift, runoff, and erosion, and using Bulletins Live! Two (BLT), said Bill Chism, who chairs the Endangered Species Committee for the Weed Science Society of America (WSSA). BLT is an online tool that displays pesticide use limitation areas (PULAs) for products with active endangered species protection bulletins. "The final strategy is much more flexible," Chism said. "There are more feasible options for farmers that just weren't there in the first one. EPA increased the points given for conservation practices, so I think they've given us more options."

This flexibility comes at the cost of increased complexity. “Pesticide applicators will be tasked with ensuring they meet mitigation measures for runoff and drift, as influenced by the pesticide itself, the crop being treated, and even the field where the product is sprayed," said Stanley Culpepper, a weed science specialist at the University of Georgia.