6.3 PESTICIDE USAGE
Building upon previous IJC activities that documented the extent of rowcrop pesticide usage (pages 48-50, 1993-95 priorities report), a series of workshops was held assessing the feasibility of partnerships to reduce the delivery of row crop pesticides to the Great Lakes.
A preliminary workshop and public consultation were conducted August 8, 1996 in Madison, Wisconsin. Considerable support was expressed regarding government/industry partnerships that could directly assist interested farmers in employing conservation and application practices that would result in smaller amounts of herbicides entering the lakes.
Programs that allow farmers to self-assess environmental risks on their particular farms have been adopted throughout the Great Lakes basin. These may provide a suitable model for public/private partnerships to use in addressing the obstacle of pesticide loss from agricultural fields. The use of effective buffer strips and conservation tillage can reduce the loss of herbicides from an agricultural field by 65-90 percent. Their widespread application could result in a considerable loading reduction of compounds such as atrazine. Economic evaluations that display a benefit or cost to a farmer using a particular tillage system are now complete. These were presented at a workshop held August 21, 1997 in Toledo, Ohio. Findings have been presented to IJC in a separate report.