Te overarching theme of this trip was for representatives from our industry to meet and communicate face-to-face with agencies and legislators so that they understand our industry, its challenges, and the many benefits of turfgrass seed and sod.
As many of you know, seed and sod are often considered specialty crops by various agencies and the uniqueness of it sometimes doesn’t quite fit with more traditional agricultural programs or the various regulatory agencies that impact agricultural policy.
As a result, we split the trip into two separate sessions. Te first of these two sessions was agency visits, where we met with upper administration at the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA), USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA), and Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs. Te second of the two sessions were legislative visits, where we met with members and staffers from the U.S. House and Senate, and with legislative affairs staff at the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) headquarters.
Agency Visits
Our agency visits began at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) headquarters where we met with USDA staff to discuss the sod checkoff program, crop insurance, research programs, market reports, BioPreferred programs, and more. We also discussed pending and proposed legislation that may impact some or all these programs and potentially our industry.
Tey were excited to meet with our producers, hear about our industry first-hand, and better understand how we can work with them to improve existing programs or to create new ones. A great example of this is crop insurance. Our industry has historically had an extremely low rate of subscribing to USDA crop insurance programs such as Whole Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) and Non- Insured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP). Why? Our producers tell us that some of the terms of these programs don’t fit our niche industry. USDA understands this and told us during our visit that they would be happy to work with us to try to create new programs or modify existing programs to better serve our industry.
How many products do you think are managed each year at the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (EPA-OPP) to ensure that they work safely and effectively? A hundred? A thousand? During our visit at EPA headquarters, the Director of EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs told us they manage over 80,000 products, 1,100 active ingredients, have received 20 registrations for new active ingredients this year alone, and that it takes about two to three years to approve each of them. Wow.
One of my roles at TPI is to track these pesticide registration reviews so that seed and sod producers can provide input from our industry’s perspective. We’ve done this with success in recent years on products such as oxadiazon, mesotrione, mancozeb, MSMA, and others.
TPI Future Leaders at USDA Headquarters. Pictured from left to right are Ryan Menken, Dr. Casey Reynolds, Mark Graf, Ben Boehme, Sarah Nolte, Matt Duncan, Kelsey Sandbothe, and Kevin Morris, president of the National Turfgrass Foundation (NTF) and executive director of the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP).
TPI Turf News November/December 2023 117
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