Use caution and care with pesticides

By Mary Jo Forbord

Prairie Horizons Farm

Langhei Township in Pope County

I grew up on a farm south of Benson.  My husband, Luverne, grew up south of Starbuck on the former dairy farm where we live and farm today. Our ancestors have been farming for five generations on this side of the Atlantic. Twenty years ago we transitioned our farm to certified organic production. Customers and friends purchase all-grass fed beef, orchard fruits and garden vegetables in our farm store. They are looking for foods grown without pesticides in a regenerative system, but they also love to watch and learn about our cattle, goats, native prairie and all of life on the farm.

Each spring as I apply to renew our organic certification and inspection. I send letters to adjacent landowners and local ground and aerial pesticide applicators, asking them to pay close attention to weather forecasts, wind speeds and direction when applying pesticides. I ask that they consult the nearby MnDOT weather station on Hwy 29 between Starbuck and Benson before spraying adjacent lands, as wind speed and direction are usually quite different here than near Benson or Clara City or wherever the sprayer is arriving from. A pesticide label is the law, and most specify that applications cannot take place when wind speeds exceed 15 mph. Spraying when winds exceed label restrictions is illegal and can cause irreparable damage, including human health effects and off-target movement onto our organic land, food and water. Despite our repeated notifications, each year brings new and more challenges in protecting our farm from contamination due to pesticides applied in illegal conditions.

Enforcement is up to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, but it is up to each of us to report violations, so I am writing to bring greater local awareness to this growing problem and what is at stake.

We are here on our farm each day, tending plants and animals, appreciating and managing and depending upon a wonderful diversity of life above and below the soil. Children and grandchildren love to play here and eat unique orchard fruits planted in memory of our son Joraan, who loved growing and sharing good food. I have long believed that nourishing food is the most powerful tool we have for boosting health and preventing disease. It is the reason I became a registered dietitian and spent a career working to improve health from farm to table.

Children are the most susceptible to ill effects from pesticide exposures, and the damage can be transmitted through generations. Many farmers and farmworkers are suffering permanent, painful, debilitating neuropathy and a host of other diseases now known to be associated with pesticide exposures. Luverne is especially sensitive and suffers when pesticides are applied in conditions that cause drift. Orchard fruit trees have been damaged and grassland birds have declined precipitously, as have pollinators, with neonicotinoid seed coatings implicated in their demise. But these are problems with solutions. If pollinators start to recover, it’s more likely we will too.

If you care and want to learn more or just have some fun and see what we do, please attend our 7th Annual Join Hands for Pollinators/14th Annual Wake Up Joraan’s Orchard on May 6. We are your neighbors, and we are in this together.