CropLife America Leaders Address Regulatory Landscape, Look To The Future

CropLife America President Jay Vroom (center) with guests at the 2014 National Policy Conference.

CropLife America President Jay Vroom (center) with guests at the 2014 National Policy Conference.

As CropLife America enters its 81st year, the organization’s leaders have seen another period of rapid and visible policy and public issue activity. Vern Hawkins, president and North America regional director of Syngenta Crop Protection, took on the role of chairman of the CropLife America board of directors at the 2013 Annual Meeting last September. Now halfway through his two-year tenure, the organization has seen progress on a number of fast-moving issues that are shaping the crop protection industry today and well ahead.

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Jay Vroom, president/CEO of CropLife America, noted that the past few years have been incredibly critical for the association. Operational effectiveness is at a new high, as CropLife America reached a record level of membership last year and surpassed more than 100 organizations. “The member leaders who actively participate on our many issues management committees have been a key component in leading CropLife America activities and outreach,” Vroom noted.

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A Future Direction

Hawkins recently helped oversee the updated 2014-24 CropLife America Strategic Plan, laying out a 10-year vision of goals and strategies to help enact the association’s mission of advocating for and promoting the responsible use of crop protection technologies. “It is important for our industry to address and analyze the current state of the crop protection industry and regulatory framework, and identify the upcoming issues and future challenges. The support of CropLife America’s members, staff and leadership is integral to moving our industry forward in advocating for sound regulations and policy.”

Following Hawkins’ election to chairman of the board, there has been a continually evolving dialogue among all relevant stakeholders involving many critical issues for our industry.

Pollinator Health

Pollinator health continues to be a significant topic of concern to all involved in agriculture and is receiving increased attention from regulators and Capitol Hill. Earlier this spring, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Agriculture Subcommittee on Horticulture, Research, Biotechnology, and Foreign Agriculture held a hearing to specifically address pollinator health. Testifying at the hearing were Dan Cummings, CEO, Capay Farms and CFO, Olivarez Honey Bees; David Fischer, director, environmental toxicology and risk assessment, Bayer CropScience; Jeff Pettis, research leader, USDA’s Agricultural Research Service; and Jeff Stone, executive director /CEO, Oregon Association of Nurseries. Witnesses at the hearing identified a number of factors that influence honeybees and other pollinators’ health, including parasitic Varroa mites, beekeeping management practices, lack of adequate nutrition and forage and various other diseases along with the responsible use of crop protection products.

“The Congressional hearing was a great step forward in focusing a united effort in improving the health of our nation’s pollinators,” says Vroom.

President Obama continued the momentum with his June 20th memorandum on pollinator health. In the memorandum, the President called for increased federal collaboration on many of the factors addressed during the Congressional hearing, including the Varroa mite control, forage and nutrition enhancement and mitigation of potential negative impacts of crop protection products.

Hints of improvement may be already underway as the 2013-14 annual survey just conducted by USDA showed that total losses of managed honeybee colonies dropped an overall 7.3%, from 30.5% last winter to 23.2% this winter.

Endangered Species Act

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) remains an important policy issue for CropLife America and U.S. farmers and ranchers. By creating a regulatory bottle-neck for crop protection registration actions, the ESA’s broken consultation process between the EPA and the Services (the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service) has led to extreme delays in the product consultation process resulting in several lawsuits of which CropLife America has been actively engaged.

“The current duplicative regulation for pesticides is only creating an added burden on the government, industry and the U.S. farm economy without providing any benefit to threatened and endangered species,” Vroom noted.

EPA is currently on schedule to complete all pesticide registration reviews and consultations by 2022, and the Services must do an additional review if the pesticide use “may affect” endangered species. This is despite the fact that EPA already reviews a product’s potential impacts on the environment, including possible effects on threatened or endangered species. In November, CropLife America commissioned a report looking at the added cost to taxpayers due to this added step. The report found that taxpayers will shoulder an extra $474 million over the next 10 years in pesticide reviews.

“We look forward to working in a collaborative dialogue with EPA, USDA and the Services to find a solution that continues to protect threatened and endangered wildlife, while using government resources more efficiently,” said Vroom.

Stewardship

Another key development this year was the introduction of CropLife Foundation’s (CLF) StewardshipFirst initiative. Launched earlier this year under CLF, Ste­wardshipFirst defines crop protection stewardship as the ethical management of a pesticide’s life cycle, from its creation to the distribution and sale, to the regulated disposal of the container. StewardshipFirst activity promotes the sensible use of pesticides through container management, agriculture warehouse accreditation and responsible use programs and practices, among other best management practices.

Involvement in StewardshipFirst includes the active participation of industry stewardship efforts and educational outreach for both regulators and key stakeholders. CropLife StewardshipFirst participants must annually renew their pledge to support the program’s Guiding Principles, and this pledge is reflected on a daily basis through companies’ adoption of best stewardship practices for their operations.

Communicating the Benefits

CropLife America’s educational outreach program, Tell Me More, entered its fourth year with a revamped educational program where participants can earn their “Masters in Modern Agriculture” (MMA). To date, more than 500 graduates across the country have participated in the program. CropLife America also launched its Modern Agricul­ture Matters photo campaign, gathering almost 200 participants this year.

“As we conduct our policy, science or communications outreach, it is critical that those within our industry are able to demonstrate the importance of their work,” said Hawkins. “This has been a great opportunity to get CropLife America member company employees actively engaged on our critical issues, while showing their pride in what they do.”

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