EPA Herbicide Strategy Would Have Been "Game Over"

“It would have been ‘game over’ for most of us.” Those are the words from University of Georgia (UGA) Extension Cotton Specialist Stanley Culpepper in addressing an EPA-proposed herbicide strategy.

Culpepper’s comments were part of his address to the recent Georgia Cotton Commission Annual Meeting where he explained that the strategy included requirements for spray drift and runoff mitigation that would have placed an unworkable compliance standard on growers, effectively eliminating farm use of herbicides to control weeds.

Farmers showed up.

Since the initial proposed rule, the EPA said it received more than 10,000 public comments, and UGA undertook two strategies of its own:

Culpepper arranged for key officials within the EPA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to talk to farmers about how herbicides are used.

Meanwhile, UGA Extension Sustainability Specialist Taylor Singleton, then a doctoral candidate working with Culpepper, developed a field-specific mapping technique that offered a more detailed look at protected species habitats.

It’s an interesting story of technology, science, and farmer input. Culpepper said it paid with the finalized herbicide strategy that the EPA published in 2024 giving farmers more flexibility.

For more: https://www.gfb.org/news/ag-news/post/cotton-growers-gain-flexibility-under-epa-herbicide-strategy