$25,000 per year for one farm.

This number does not refer to a new piece of equipment, agricultural labor wages, or chemical inputs. Instead this $25,000 refers to the amount of money spent by one Washington farm on personal protective equipment (PPE) like gloves and disposable suits used by pesticide handlers and applicators. This does not include the classes, videos, and time paid to workers for training hours on this 400-acre mid-size fruit farm.

The amount of money spent on PPE has increased significantly over the years for this farm and reflects the transition away from his role as farmer, toward a compliance officer. “If a four-day notification for pesticide use is implemented it will not change how I spray,” he told the Pesticide Safety Application Workgroup, “but only when, and I will end up spraying more often. This will do nothing to help the agricultural workers.”

This was just one of the examples presented to Washington’s Pesticide Safety Application Workgroup on Tuesday, July 16^th in Quincy. It was the second meeting of the workgroup that was formed by the passage of Senate Bill 6529 during the 2018 Legislative Session.The original version of the bill required a four-day spray notification and created a costly tracking database. The final version omitted the notification process and database, and instead created a workgroup to review existing regulations and submit recommendations to the legislature.

From the presentations made to the workgroup by Washington farmers, the four-day notification is still very concerning. Senator Rebecca Saldana (D-Seattle), co-chair of the workgroup, reassured farmers, however, saying, “This workgroup is not about requiring the four-day notification and it is off the table.”

We hope that is the case because farmers are already struggling under the burden of excessive regulations which only add costs without improving safety. Farmers care for their workers and have voluntarily adopted knowledge and technology to improve safety as it became available. Unfortunately, as one of the presenting farmers said, “We are doing a 1,000 times better and our perception is worse.”

This perception led to ballooning regulatory costs due to the additional administrative expenses and compliance requirements and this is coupled with escalating labor costs – additional expenses that farmers are unable to pass along to consumers in the near term and must absorb. Only the large farms can absorb these costs and time-wasting procedures that require more paperwork with no evidence of benefits.

Despite consumers claiming they want to protect and encourage small family farms, their trust in misleading statements regarding farm practices encourages harmful regulations and promotes very large farms.

Regulations also create an additional complication – increased fear. Anti-farming advocates and unnecessary regulations promote a false storyline which damages the perception of these needed and beneficial technologies, like pesticides. In Washington state, farmers need pesticides to stop pests like the coddling moth from destroying an entire apple orchard in a matter of days and to prevent the spread of late blight through potato fields that only takes days to the inflict the same havoc that caused the Irish Potato Famine.

This exaggerated fear is unnecessary and hurts not just the consumer but also the workers. Farmers presenting to the workgroup shared that it is harder to find workers who will become pesticide applicators and handlers because of the perceived risk which is much higher than the actual risk. This discourages farmworkers from taking these better paying, less labor intensive, and steadier jobs. The perception continues to worsen because the some education programs focus on rare dangers and not the real risk associated with the pesticide products.

How do we move forward? A consensus from the presentations is that additional regulations are not the answer. Technology, improved farmer-to-farmer communication, and continuing Washington State Department of Agriculture’s current applicator education program will be beneficial.

Continuing to spread fear makes the situation worse by increasing the number of applications made, discouraging farmworkers from taking these better paying jobs, favoring large farms over small farms by increasing regulatory costs, without improving the safety of workers.