Editor’s Note: This is one component of a multi-part presentation on agriculture presented at the 2026 Mid America CropLife Association Annual Meeting. To view the rest of this presentation, see the companion story in the November 2026 edition of CropLife Magazine.
Dr. Stanley Culpepper, Professor – Extension Weed Scientist at the University of Georgia, spoke at the 2026 Mid America CropLife Association meeting on September 8-10 in Omaha, NE.
In Culpepper’s mind, the agricultural industry currently faces four key challenges that directly impact how it conducts business. The first one is the numerous activists’ lawsuits and court battles that have constantly plagued the entire industry over the past several years. Lawsuits against pesticides are nothing new, with cases such as Bates v. Dow Agrisciences involving a Texas peanut farmer claiming crop damage from the Dow herbicide Strongarm, going back more than 20 years.
But in recent years, these lawsuits have gotten more frequent and, as Culpepper stated, almost automatic. For example, crop systems using dicamba were challenged from almost the moment they obtained federal approval back in 2017. The product registration for dicamba was challenged in court and removed from use twice during this time. Dicamba is now on its third try in the market.
All these examples and many more make activist lawsuits the No. 1 challenge facing pesticides today, said Culpepper.
“For farmers, the threat of these activist lawsuits is driving many of the in-field decisions that they make,” he said. “We all know that when a new pesticide receives a product registration from the EPA, it’s almost going to be immediately challenged in the court system by some group opposed to it. This has seriously slowed down the entire registration process and is costing the crop protection industry an incredibly high amount of money to defend.”
Watching MAHA
The second key challenge facing the pesticides industry today comes from the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. Coming into prominence during the second Donald Trump’s second administration, with the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services, members of MAHA originally wanted the MAHA movement initially included members who wanted to see virtually all pesticides banned from use in crop production. Thankfully, said Culpepper, the official government policies tied to the MAHA movement that have been formally introduced aren’t nearly as Draconian as this.
“MAHA is intensive as a group,” he said. “But Kennedy himself said that anything MAHA wants won’t succeed without the help of farmers.”
Tied to both activist lawsuits and MAHA is the third challenge facing farmers today — the Endangered Species Act (ESA) requirements. Tracing its history back to the so-called “mega-lawsuit” in 2011, this decision caused the federal government to rescind the long-standing regulatory definition of “harm” under ESA, seeking to exclude certain types of habitat destruction from the legal definition. Plaintiffs argued that stripping habitat protection is “biological nonsense” that contradicts 50 years of precedent and violates the Administrative Procedure Act. Ultimately, the courts agreed with these views.
Since then, the government has been slowly rolling out new requirements for pesticide labels tied to ESA. To date, all three major categories of pesticides — herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides — have been introduced, with a handful of updated product labels also being launched.
On the farm, Culpepper said growers are facing many challenges getting their farming practices in line with the new ESA requirements. Luckily, he thought that ag retailers are uniquely positioned to help with this effort.
“Extension and consultants can play a role in ESA mandates, but I don’t think we can pull this off nationally,” he said. “But ag retailers, I think you have an unbelievable opportunity to help your farmers do this. I think you have to take a lead role here.”
The fourth challenge facing farmers is weed resistance itself. According to the Weed Science Society of America, there are approximately 273 herbicide-resistant weed species around the globe in 2026. In recent years, weeds resistant to such herbicides as dicamba, s-metolachlor, and HPPD (4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase) have also appeared.
In this kind of environment, Culpepper said that he believes the use of residual herbicides will be the key to successfully managing resistant weeds going forward.
“In my research, I’ve used residual herbicides with two different modes of action that cost me $10.78 per acre and was able to control over 1 million weeds,” he said. “I tell all my farmers that they can’t rely on just one herbicide for control anymore, or else they are going to end up being one of the 1.7 farms that disappear once every hour according to the USDA.”
