Atrazine Ban Would Add to Unemployment

A University of Chicago economist says banning the herbicide Atrazine would add to the current unemployment level in the United States.

According to University of Chicago economist Don Coursey, a ban on the herbicide would cost between 21,000 and 48,000 jobs from corn production losses alone. His findings were presented today at a National Press Club briefing sponsored by the Triazine Network in Washington. Coursey estimates atrazine’s annual production value to corn alone to be between $2.3 billion and $5 billion. Atrazine’s additional value to sorghum, sugar cane and other uses increases these totals.

Coursey says his estimate of job losses would be primarily in the agriculture and rural sectors of the economy, where unemployment is currently about 12 percent. A ban on atrazine he says would increase that to about 14.6 percent. Another way of looking at it, says Coursey, is assuming that all the job losses would occur in the corn-growing sector of the nation. “Starting from the current unemployment rate of about 11%, you double that either to 10.9 plus 11, or as much as an increase of 25% more. That is, 11 plus 25 or into the high 30% unemployment rate in the corn sector. That’s why I feel justified in using the word devastating,” he said. Most of that would be felt by small family farmers.

The Triazine Network is made up of groups representing crops as diverse as citrus, grapes, grain sorghum, nuts, corn, nursery crops, fruits, vegetables, Christmas trees, soybeans and sugarcane that have banded together to respond to the special review of triazine herbicides by the EPA. Kansas Corn Growers executive director Jere White serves as chairman of the group. “No one cares more about the safety of agricultural pesticides than farmers who use them on their farms. It’s where we live and where we raise our children,” said White. “If sound scientific research finds that atrazine, or any agricultural pesticide, cannot be used safely we will be the first to agree with increased regulation. But sound scientific research has found repeatedly that atrazine is safe.” White says the current re-review of atrazine has been prompted by activist-fed media reports and shoddy science.

EPA re-registered atrazine in 2006 based on the evidence of nearly 6,000 studies and more than 80,000 public comments. However, the agency began an additional, unscheduled review of atrazine in late 2009. Atrazine is the second most-used herbicide in the United States, controlling a broad range of weeds in corn, sorghum and sugar cane for over 50 years. No suitable replacement for it currently exists in terms of efficacy and affordability.

Find out more about the study here.

You can download (mp3) and listen to opening statements from the press conference here: