STUDY FINDS LOSS OF ATRAZINE COULD COST $5 BILLION PER YEAR

News Date July 13, 2010

A ban on atrazine would cause a loss of 21,000 to 48,000 jobs in corn production alone based on an economic modeling study by Dr. Don L. Coursey, a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. Details of the study were released last week at a briefing held at the National Press Club and hosted by Jere White, Chairman of the Triazine Network.  The press conference was held to address the unscheduled review of atrazine that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began in late 2009.  Dr. Coursey’s study estimates banning the herbicide would cost corn growers an additional $26-58 per acre per year, and cost the corn industry $2.3 to 5 billion per year.  This is a conservative estimate of the total effect of removing atrazine from the market, because it only considers the effects on the corn industry; atrazine is also very important to sugar cane and sorghum production.

The unscheduled EPA review is in response to lawsuits in federal and Illinois state courts, led by activists and lawyers with a history of class action cases, despite the fact that Atrazine was under review for 12 years and analyzed in thousands of studies before re-registration.  There is no precedent where EPA has re-evaluated a registered item outside of normal regulatory guidelines, or in response to activism; the implications for other registered products outside of this case are uncertain and concerning to the agriculture industry.

A 50-year veteran of the agriculture market, atrazine is the second most used herbicide in the United States, and with over 6000 documents on record is the most studied herbicide in the world.  EPA, the World Health Organization, and the National Cancer Institute have previously conducted safety reviews on atrazine, and EPA’s June 2006 re-registration states that the triazine products pose “no harm that would result to the general U.S. population, infants, children, or other major identifiable subgroups of consumers.” Additionally, the latest research shows that this class of chemicals continues to meet rigorous environmental standards placed on agricultural chemicals.

Information on atrazine can be found on the Triazine Network AGsense website. (By: Jason Markovich,  Contact: Nathan Bowen or Bob Ehart)