Lori Cox lives on an organic practices farm in Carver County, on the western end of the seven-county region, a place slowly transitioning from farms to suburbs. For several years she grew vegetables, herbs and fruits for local markets. Following an injury, she now leases her farm fields to new and emerging sustainable food farmers. She is active with many organizations such as the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR), the Minnesota Agriculture Water Quality Certification Program, MN Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA), Carver County Water Management Organization, and the University of Minnesota Bee Lab.
Cox is so concerned about the health of the air, soils, and water on her land and across Minnesota that she has joined several groups to petition the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) to make rules about pesticide-coated seeds. In her area, as throughout Minnesota, almost all corn seeds and nearly half of soybean seeds are coated with pesticides prior to planting. These figures come from the MDA, but the agency takes the position that it doesn’t have the authority to regulate them.
Critics like Cox refer to a loophole at the federal level that exempts pesticide-treated seeds from regulation under FIFRA, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says the seeds are comparable to railroad ties and other “articles” that are treated to prevent rot and other natural damage, and since 1988 the agency has exempted treated seeds from regulation under FIFRA.
Cox has neighbors who use pesticides. “Probably in my third year here, I saw a helicopter flying over the fields across my road. It was what they call a prophylactic use, spraying over the entire area fencepost-to-fencepost. A few minutes after they left that area, I smelled it, then I felt a little woozy.” She called the pesticide hotline of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. “Unless you’re throwing up or at the hospital, they tell you to call back if it gets worse,” she says.
She registered with FieldWatch as a person concerned about pesticide applications, and says in ten years of farming, she only received one call from an applicator asking about her concerns.
The use of treated seeds is part of what advocates describe as “precision agriculture,” saying treating the seeds allows lower usage of pesticides later in the growing season. Cox says this description is misleading. Tractors operate at fairly high speeds, and equipment spews the pesticide-coated seeds onto the ground. She has seen dust drifting from the machinery. Seed companies treat seeds with bright colors to identify them as containing pesticides. “Drift can happen with a vaporized droplet, with dust, with any conditions,” she says. “The claim of ‘precision agriculture’ is really a marketing ploy to try to make it look like there is some exact practice that prevents any pollution from occurring.”
Although her land and farming practices have been certified organic eligible for years, Cox says if the farmer currently renting her fields wants to get organic certification for the fruit grown near the road, a certifier might take a tissue sample of a leaf, bark, or a fruit, and if it’s affected by drift from the treated fields across the road, the farmer would lose the ability to get certified for three years. That would significantly lower the value of the product.
Farmers have been using treated seeds to protect a future crop for a long time; they’ve used mercury, nicotine, and other toxic substances over the years. The use of neonicotinoids began shortly after the turn of the 21st century. Neonicotinoids (commonly called “neonics”) are a family of toxic substances that are absorbed by plants, making the whole plant toxic to insect pests. Neonics have been found in leaves and stems, pollen and nectar of treated plants. They are now the most commonly-applied pesticides.
Three groups filed the petition together: the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Trout Unlimited, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Lucas Rhoads, a senior attorney at NRDC, helped write the petition to MDA. He says neonics have been marketed as a preventative treatment: the plant will absorb it, and it will protect the plant throughout the entire season, if a pest becomes a problem.
“It’s sold as a relatively inexpensive insurance against catastrophic crop loss,” Rhoads says. “Crop advisors will tell a farmer, ‘It’s possible you could have some pest in your soil that if it’s really bad it could be catastrophic for your crop, and putting this on the seed gives you extra protection against those pests.’ Crop advisors frequently have ties to the pesticide industry.”
Rhoads says independent research on the impact of neonic seed treatments shows the pesticides don’t reliably boost yield. “Farmers are not getting more product by using them, and the reason is somewhat unclear,” he says. “A theory is emerging that the targeted pests are rarely going to cause economic damage to plants. Even when they’re in the soil, they’re not damaging plants significantly.”
And, of course, most commodity farmers are insured against catastrophic crop loss by the U.S. government. That’s us taxpayers.
The last decade has seen a dramatic consolidation of the agrochemical industry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says more than 70 percent of corn and soybean seeds sold in the U.S. come from four companies, and they are the same companies that manufacture neonics.
“When farmers are surveyed and asked where they get most of the information they use to care for their land and crops, the top two they mention are pesticide companies and seed dealers,” says Rhoads. “I consider them almost extensions of each other.”
The scarcity of reliable information about use of treated seeds comes from gaps in data-gathering by private and government agencies. This is exacerbated by the observation by researchers that farmers usually know less about the pesticides coated on their seeds than they know about traditional, field-applied pesticides. They frequently don’t even know the formulation of the pesticide. They accept a recommendation and sow the seed. In one survey, the MDA found that only 62 percent of farmers scouted their own fields for soybean aphid (the main reason for insecticide use).
Rhoads compares neonics to antibiotics. “Obviously antibiotics are crucially helpful when one is sick, but that doesn’t mean we should all be taking an antibiotic every day,” he says. In addition to the lack of efficacy, such routine use contributes to resistance to the medicine, or in this case, resistance to the pesticide.
Neonics were commercialized for agriculture use in 1991, and the first case of resistance among target insects was reported in 1996.
MDA acknowledges the resistance problem, and says treated seeds are probably the biggest source of neonic contamination in Minnesota’s environment. A Minnesota Department of Natural Resources study published in 2023 found neonic ingredients in 15 percent to 85 percent of surface lakes and rivers. In 2019 it was found in 63 percent of deer, and two years later it was found in 94 percent of deer; some deer carried levels that could cause birth defects and other harms. Studies of impacts on humans have identified neurological and system damage, but researchers agree much more study is needed. Many researchers believe the precipitous decline in insect populations worldwide, including pollinators, is due in part to the increasing use of pesticides.
Should Minnesota regulate treated seeds?
The groups’ petition argues that although treated seeds are not regulated at the federal level, there’s every reason the state should regulate them. The petitioners suggest an approach used in Quebec since 2019, in which agronomists’ recommendations must be based on specific conditions in a farmer’s field. They deploy traps and when certain insects are captured at a certain rate, they can recommend treated seeds. This is called “verification of need,” and similar laws have recently been passed in New York and Vermont. In Quebec the results have been dramatic. Before the new law went into effect, close to 100 percent of corn and 50 percent of soy seeds were treated with neonics. Two years later, less than half of corn acres were planted with neonic seeds and there was no known planting of soy treated seeds. Rhoads says there have been no documented cases of farmers losing their crops as a result of not using neonics.
Seed companies offer reassuring messages to farmers and consumers. Corteva’s website says: “All pesticides are highly regulated in every country. . . You can feel confident that any pesticide farmers use has been highly tested and regulated. . . In the U.S., for example, every pesticide product is reviewed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) before it is registered and allowed to be sold. . . Products are made to be effective at lower use rates, to break down rapidly and to be highly targeted, so they work only on specific pests or at a specific time in a pest’s life cycle.”
The MDA must respond to the petition by December 19. Spokesman Allen Summerfeld provided the following statement: “The MDA is currently evaluating the petition and will rely on all available information on neonicotinoids and treated seed when we respond. Our response to the petitioners will come within the 60-day timeframe that is outlined in state statute.”
Meanwhile, in Carver County, farmer Lori Cox says produce farmers need to organize to challenge the enormous lobbying clout of the agrochemical industry. “We’re so varied,” she says. “We grow sometimes 20 or 30 different varieties at a time. We need to come together.”
