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Council of Producers & Distributors of Agrotechnology
Terry Kippley, CPDA
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In this Issue:
- Endangered Species Act Drift Reduction Adjuvant Mitigation
- CPDA Co-Signs Letter Seeking an Extension of the Draft Insecticide Strategy Comment Period
- Farm Bill
- State Affairs: Western Plant Health’s Regulatory Conference
- Register for EPA’s Webinar on Draft Strategy to Better Protect Endangered Species from Insecticides
- Jay Vroom Installed as Alpha Gamma Rho’s 54th Grand President
- CPDA Visits Member Battelle
- 2024 CPDA Annual Meeting
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Endangered Species Act: Drift Reduction Adjuvants (DRAs) Mitigation
CPDA’s Expert Team continues to work on our response to EPA’s Draft Insecticide Strategy which includes mitigation measures addressing spray drift and erosion. We will be providing additional data and technical expertise highlighting the benefits of DRAs.
The Expert Team’s initial review has revealed some very good news. EPA’s proposal links boom height, nozzle type and DRA’s that would provide substantial buffer reductions for growers. In the chart below, you can see the significant reductions in buffer zones required for compliance.
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Additionally, there is also a 10% credit for spraying in > 60% humidity, providing further reductions in no-spray buffer requirements.
Our plan going forward is to reinforce EPA’s position regarding DRAs with CPDA provided data to increase the reduction values. One of the shortcomings of EPA’s proposal is that only oil emulsion adjuvants are qualified. CPDA will be providing a response to the agency to encourage the inclusion of additional DRA formulations and types. Public comments are due to the EPA by September 23, 2024.
In addition to providing technical comments back to the agency, CPDA is also working the appropriate policy and political angles. CPDA Senior Advisor Jay Vroom met with Rod Snyder, Senior Advisor for Agriculture to the EPA Administrator last week to raise his awareness of CPDA’s work in this area along with some of our concerns about the proposal. Once we finish our technical remarks, CPDA will meet again with agency leadership. We believe the solutions proposed by CPDA will not only help meet the agency’s goals but will provide wins for growers and the environment.
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CPDA Co-Signs Letter Seeking an Extension of the Draft Insecticide Strategy Comment Period
The Draft Insecticide Strategy is a lengthy, complex proposal totaling over seven hundred pages. To ensure CPDA priorities are properly included in a final strategy, CPDA joined 239 other organizations requesting an extension of the current 60-day comment period to 90 days.
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Farm Bill
On May 2, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its official cost estimate for the House Farm Bill. CBO says the bill would increase the federal budget deficit by $33 billion, creating another hurdle for moving the legislation. House Republican leaders will have to either overrule the CBO, which could cost the bill some support from budget hawks, cut spending in the bill, or set it aside. Even if they do overrule the CBO, the Democratic-controlled Senate would not go along with that move, and some Republicans might not support it either. The budget challenge does not necessarily get any easier in the next Congress, since falling crop prices would make it even more expensive to raise reference prices and make other changes to commodity programs.
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State Affairs: Western Plant Health’s Regulatory Conference
Last week, CPDA Strategic Advisor Andrew Walmsley and I attended the Western Plant Health Regulatory Conference in Sacramento. This was a great opportunity to build relationships with California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) staff, other key stakeholders and interact with CPDA member companies.
DPR staff provided updates on their Sustainable Pest Management (SPM) goals, the implementation of CalPEST, which transitions the agency from a paper-based system to an electronic system, and the recent legislative updates concerning the state budget and mill fee increase.
The 2024- 25 state budget provides additional funding for DPR by increasing the mill fee over four years. This will allow DPR to add approximately 120 new positions and $34 million to support DPR’s core functions and priorities.
This news comes with concerns. Our hope is that this new money will help clear the significant backlogs at DPR. Conversely, this increases input costs for the already stressed California ag economy.
Andrew, CPDA Board Member David Bower and I also had the opportunity to meet with Jason Eiserich, the Environmental Program Manager of DPR, to discuss adjuvants. Jason indicated that no immediate action is expected around adjuvants, with the earliest actions being at least 12 months off. We also met with DPR’s Aniela Burant and Polo Moreno to discuss DRAs and ESA plans for the state.
Making the most of our time in California, Andrew and I also met with California Farm Bureau Federation President Shannon Douglas and CFBF Chief Lobbyist Chris Reardon for lunch. President Douglass will be joining CPDA at our annual meeting in San Diego. Rounding out a full week, Andrew and I also squeezed in a meeting with CFBF’s new Chief Operating Officer Dan Durheim in addition to a meeting with WPHA Chair, Melissa McQueen, Nutrien and other CPDA members discussing how we can collaborate to help the California grower.
|  | Dr. Tulio Macedo, Dr. Emily Saad, Dr. Jill Townzen, Aron Lindgren and Alicia Imbrogna | |
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Terry Kippley, Dr. Jason Eiserich, David Bower, Bryan George, Andrew Walmsley
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Terry Kippley, CPDA; David Bower, Brandt; Marcia Trostle, Nutrien; Andrew Walmsley, CPDA; Melissa McQueen, Nutrien; WPHA Chair; Lynn Georges, Wilbur-Ellis; Sherry Heeren, Nutrien | |
Terry Kippley, Dan Durham, Andrew Walmsley | |
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Register for EPA’s Webinar on Draft Strategy to Better Protect Endangered Species from Insecticides
EPA will hold a public webinar on September 5, 2024, from 1-2 PM ET to provide an overview of its draft Insecticide Strategy. Released on July 25, 2024, the draft strategy is the next step in the agency’s work to adopt protections for federally listed species and designated critical habitats from the use of conventional agricultural insecticides.
The draft strategy identifies protections that EPA will consider when it registers a new insecticide or reevaluates an existing one. In developing this draft strategy, EPA identified protections to address potential impacts for more than 850 species listed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS).
The webinar will include:
- Discussion of the proposed three-step framework to identify potential population-level impacts to species, identify mitigation measures to address these impacts, and determine the geographic extent of the mitigation measures;
- An overview of case studies to illustrate how the framework could be applied to representative insecticides and how EPA expects to implement the strategy in its registration and registration review actions.
The webinar is open to the public, but you must first register.
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Jay Vroom Installed as Alpha Gamma Rho’s 54th Grand President
I am pleased to report that Jay Vroom was installed last week as the 54th Grand President of the Alpha Gamma Rho (AGR) Fraternity. AGR is one of the strongest, most enduring brands in U.S. agriculture having thrived for 120 years working to advance the professional development of undergraduate men.
Congratulations Jay!
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CPDA Visits Member Battelle
On July 31, Battelle’s Amy Dindal, Darcy Brown and Tim Lane hosted Eileen Bernard of Nutrien, David Bower and Danielle Knox of Brandt, Dakota Robinson of Adjuvants Unlimited along with Jay Vroom, Bruce Bollinger and me for a strategic capabilities review on PFAs and ag chem formulation. We also were given an overview of Battelle’s work on soybean-based adjuvant feedstock and methods development as well as its state-of-the-art wind tunnel facilities.
Battelle is a private, $22 billion nonprofit applied science and technology development company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.
Thank you Amy, Darcy and Tim for the incredible visit!
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Darcy Brown, Tim Lane, Amy Dindal, Jay Vroom, Terry Kippley, Danielle Knox, Eileen Bernard, Bruce Bollinger, David Bower, Dakota Robinson. | |
Our chance to meet Adam Sharp, Chief Executive at Ohio Farm Bureau the night before our Battelle meetings was fortuitous— Adam was a political appointee at the EPA during the GW Bush Administration when the current turmoil over Endangered Species and pesticide policy first emerged as a real threat. Adam shared some key recollections from that era, 20 years ago, and gave us valuable feedback on the current policy situation EPA is advancing— including the “easy button” mitigation options of DRAs. | |
Terry Kippley, CPDA; Eileen Bernard, Nutrien; Amy Dindal, Battelle; Jay Vroom, CPDA; Adam Sharp, Ohio Farm Bureau | |
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2024 CPDA Annual Meeting & PAC Silent Auction
Make plans to attend the 2024 CPDA Annual Meeting September 15-18 in beautiful San Diego, California. Like the last two annual meetings, we will be holding our annual meeting at the same time CropLife America is holding theirs. To take advantage of this partnership, we will be holding a joint networking reception with CLA where you can reconnect with old friends while making new ones.
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