The chorus of voices that want to bring radical change to the way American farmers farm seems to be growing louder as they seek to sway sympathetic ears in Washington. Campaigns against pesticide use in particular threaten not only U.S. agricultural output but vital Farm Bill programs that support the ag economy.
Pesticides are some of the most important tools farmers have to control weeds, insects, and disease. Crops produced for food and feed face some 3,000 species of nematodes, 10,000 species of plant-eating insects, and 30,000 species of weeds.
While all pests are a concern to farmers, weeds are hands-down the most pervasive. The mostly widely used tool to fight them is “glyphosate,” aka “Roundup,” which has been under threat from all directions for years now. The Directions Group (formerly Aimpoint Research) released a report last year that measured the potential impacts if U.S. farmers no longer had access to glyphosate. The report concluded that while markets would adapt through substitution and adjusted practices, it would come at a substantial cost to farmers and the environment.
“U.S. farmers would bear the burden of increased input and operating costs with small farmers disproportionately affected. Further analysis reveals a cascading chain of likely higher-order effects and unintended consequences, the most impactful being the rapid release of additional greenhouse gases and the reversal of decades of conservation and sustainability gains.”
The Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) looked at the potential loss to key crops due to weeds if no management practices are employed. For corn, yield loss was just over -50%. Averaged across a 2007-2013 corn price of $4.94 per bushel, farm gate value would be reduced by -$25.7 billion. For soybeans, yield loss was more than -52%, representing a -$16.2 billion reduction in farm gate value in the same time period at a price of $10.61 per bushel.
Losing access to glyphosate and other crop chemicals would also have ramifications for Farm Bill programs. Under the WSSA analysis including four crops covered under Title I support programs – corn, soybeans, dry beans, and sugar beets – crop revenue losses from weed interference totaled -$53.54 billion over the life of the study.
Regardless of a farmer’s management decision for weed control, higher on-farm costs of production from a disruption to herbicide availability would reduce net farm income. A new report from Directions Group found that five alternatives to glyphosate range from +109% to +158% mores costly. For nine Title I program crops (corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, peanuts, sorghum, oats barley), the loss of glyphosate and the resulting use of higher cost alternative chemistries would total -$2.89 billion in lost net farm revenue based on 2024 cost estimates from USDA.
Additionally, if farmers adopt more intensive tillage practices for weed control in lieu of herbicide-enabled practices, farmers would also see significant increases in fuel costs. For example, switching from glyphosate-enabled no-till for corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and other herbicide tolerant crops to seasonal or continuous conventional tillage can increase per acre fuel use between 100% to 200%. Labor costs – both direct hired labor and the opportunity costs of farmer operators’ unpaid labor and overhead – would also increase with more tillage.
These added operating expenses increase farmers’ breakeven costs, reducing expected net farm income. This would result in a lower effective safety net under the Title I commodity support programs which are based on a statutorily set commodity price or average gross revenue.
Cumulatively, for the six crops corn, soybeans, cotton, wheat, canola, and sugar beets, as well as fallow land, reverting to conventional tillage for weed control would add $2.414 billion in costs, more than doubling the costs from glyphosate practices. Increasing field passes from two for no-till to a maximum of eight for conventional tillage on a 500-acre farm would result in $3,772 in added hired labor costs ($7.54 per acre) and/or $7,326 in farm management opportunity costs ($14.65 per acre).
I’ve covered only a portion of the full cost to farmers and American consumers that would result from loss of access to glyphosate. Impacts would also be felt across USDA conservation and nutrition programs. The full report is HERE.
The added costs are obviously untenable for American farmers and would ultimately threaten not only food supplies here at home, but those in the rest of the world as well. Still, forces keen on drastically curbing the tools that farmers need to grow food have managed to seep into the upper levels of power in Washington D.C. where there is a greater chance that these bad ideas may gain legitimacy.
While many politicians in Washington are sympathetic to the needs of farmers, that does not mean they understand farming. It’s important that the agriculture community convey their alarm about losing critical crop chemicals and the threat it poses to their livelihoods, as well as the food security of America. You can find and contact the members of the Senate and House that represent you in Congress HERE.
