A flurry of court decisions and new federal policies this year changed which pesticides farmers can use and how.
A number of commonly used crop protection products were pulled from the market this year, including dicamba, a controversial herbicide that is vulnerable to drifting and destroying plants outside of farm boundaries. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also announced a rare emergency action to ban DCPA or Dachtal, which is used on onions and broccoli.
Outside of restrictions on individual pesticides, the EPA also took steps to reassess how it approves crop protection products in the future. The agency finalized a plan to safeguard endangered species from pesticides and proposed reviving an Obama-era rule to protect farmworkers from these chemicals.
Farmers may experience the impact of these new regulations beyond 2024. The EPA is expected to use new strategies to reapprove pesticides and likely impose additional restrictions on how some products can be used. However, under the new Trump administration, some decisions could be overturned or reversed.
Here’s a look back on some of the biggest pesticide regulation stories of the year.