Ag industry sorts through EPA herbicide strategy

Farmers, ag groups and Extension personnel are sorting through the impacts of the Environmental Protection Agency’s final herbicide strategy for compliance with the Endangered Species Act.

The strategy, which will be gradually implemented, has three main goals — reducing herbicide drift, reducing field erosion and runoff, and re-registering each herbicide every 15 years so all herbicides are subject to periodic review.

The final herbicide strategy, released in August 2024, seeks to continue herbicide access for farmers while also settling lawsuits against the EPA from environmental groups claiming the EPA has not been compliant with the Endangered Species Act in issuing herbicide approvals.

Aaron Hager, a University of Illinois Extension specialist in weed science, says this was part of a settlement to a “megasuit” challenging many pesticide registrations.

“It’s one of the steps that the agency took to settle the lawsuit,” he says. “That was a lawsuit that challenged the registrations of over a thousand pesticides.”