Article

Among a myriad of items included in the new state budget for Ohio, there are changes to pesticide licensing laws that Ohio Farm Bureau considers overly burdensome when it comes to the direct impact of Ohio agriculture.

In this Legal with Leah, Ohio Farm Bureau Associate General Counsel Leah Curtis discusses these changes and what farmers need to know as they go into effect.

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Listen to Legal with Leah, a podcast featuring Ohio Farm Bureau Associate General Counsel Leah Curtis discussing topics impacting farmers and landowners.

Transcript

Ty Higgins [00:00:00] Ohio has a new state budget, now signed by Governor DeWine, over 3,000 pages, and sometimes in a state budget you find things that you may think, ‘What’s that doing there?’ One of those things you might be seeing is about pesticide licensing laws. Leah Curtis joins us on this Legal with Leah. She’s Associate General Counsel for the Ohio Farm Bureau. 

Ty Higgins [00:00:23] So we are fresh off the ink really hasn’t dried from Governor DeWine signing off on this budget. Remind us, what is the current law for pesticide licensing here in Ohio?

Leah Curtis [00:00:33] So I want to start by reminding everyone that our pesticide laws are all based on the federal laws at the federal level. So states can have the pesticide licensing delegated to them from the federal law, but we do have to be in compliance with at least the basic federal law. So that’s what we do here in Ohio, as we do in most states. So currently, you need to have a pesticide license as a private applicator to purchase and handle restricted use pesticides. But the law does allow for private applicators that have a license to supervise employees and family members who do not have licenses in using restricted use pesticides on the farm. And we know a lot of farmers do that with their employees or their other family members.

Ty Higgins [00:01:17] Let’s start at that federal level law. You mentioned that a couple of minutes ago. There were some changes at the federal level about this. Explain those to us first.

Leah Curtis [00:01:26] The federal government did an overhaul of pesticide licensing regulation in 2017. So once they changed regulations kind of, you know, throughout the entire process of pesticide licensing, both for private and commercial applicators, they then give states a number of years, like Ohio, to come up with a compliance plan, explaining how they will then come into compliance with these new changes in the federal law. So there are a number of years to do that. I believe because of the pandemic that timeline was extended out and they had to submit those plans, have them finalized by November of 2023. So now we’re at a point where the state has submitted its plan and it has to move forward with implementing that plan to keep its status as a delegated state.

Ty Higgins [00:02:10] The biggest change related to restricted use pesticides and those unlicensed people who may have been supervised by a licensed handler, what are those changes?

Leah Curtis [00:02:19] So if people are listening or were waiting for the surprise, they probably saw it coming, but the federal rules changed so that any unlicensed handlers who use restricted use pesticides, they will need to have additional training to do that. So this would mean that in addition to the supervisor, the farmer, the one person that does have the pesticide license, everyone else who might use, prepare or transport restricted use pesticides is also going to have to have some training. It is not necessarily the license training but training provided by that licensee. It is not a rules like our training; it is topical based, so you have to provide training on various topics, and the rules also allow for if you’re already providing worker protection standard training which many people do for their employees, then that also qualifies as your pesticide handling training for your employees. So the state of Ohio in its compliance plan, they did propose to actually not provide that option and instead to just require everyone to go through that licensing requirement. So to handle or use a restricted use pesticide, you would need to have a license, and that’s what is in the budget currently. So we at Farm Bureau, we know that’s gonna be overly burdensome for a lot of our members. We know that a lot of members can meet those training obligations. They may already be meeting them with the worker protection standard. And we want everyone to have the choice. We want farmers to be able to make the choice as to what works for their farm and their needs, either getting more people licensed or providing training for their employees and family members.

Ty Higgins [00:04:00] Burdensome regulations, two words that the reason Farm Bureau exists, right? We heard a lot from our members about this when they saw this coming, as you talked about a few moments ago. Given these concerns, what is Farm Bureau doing?

Leah Curtis [00:04:13] So during the budget process, we were able to work with the Department of Agriculture to express our concerns and work through this. We did actually have it removed from the budget in the Senate, but it ended up back in during the conference committee. We asked for a veto and that did not occur. But we’ve already had discussions with ODA about fixing this and that we need to be fixing it as soon as possible so that farmers do have this option and can make this choice. So we will be working with them on legislation to correct this change as soon as possible. And I wanna remind everyone that the budget generally does not go into effect until September 30. So we do have some time to get some changes made, and they’ve already committed to us that they will not enforce these changes until we’re able to do further legislation and provide these choices.

Ty Higgins [00:05:00] But for now, what’s law is law, so what should farmers be thinking about knowing that these changes will be coming?

Leah Curtis [00:05:06] So again, we’re going to work on legislation to make sure that you have this choice, but eventually there is gonna be this choice that you’re gonna need to make. So if you do want to think about having other people licensed on your farm, you can go ahead and do that. We will include a link in the story on the website to the Department of Ag’s private applicator page where you can find information about exams, study materials, all that information. If you don’t want to do that and you will plan on continuing to supervise, as we get legislation prepared and passed, we will then make sure that everyone has information on what types of training they need to provide, and then you’ll need to work that into your employee training plan going forward.