NAAA has responded to the Texas Observer over its slanted portrayal of the industry in a cover story that accuses aerial applicators in Texas cotton country of damaging property and making residents sick due to rampant and indiscriminate spraying. Dubbed POISON PLANES in thick all-cap letters, the cover of Texas Observer’s April issue features an illustration of a man shrouded in a thick stream of spray from a passing ag plane. The headline writers pushed the envelope even further inside the magazine by titling the article, “Death From Above.”

We won’t recount everything in the article here, but NAAA was troubled by the way it portrayed Texas crop dusters and took issue with many of the claims levied by author Christopher Collins, a reputed independent investigative journalist. The Texas Observer is a bimonthly magazine published by the Texas Democracy Foundation. The nonprofit news organization purports to cover issues “that are often ignored or underreported by other media.” And yet, for a magazine that strives to “expose injustice and to produce the kind of impact journalism that changes people’s lives for the better,” the Observer has done a grave injustice to aerial applicators in Texas and the industry at large.

NAAA sent a letter to the editor of Texas Observer yesterday expressing our displeasure over its offensive cover story. NAAA Executive Director Andrew Moore’s letter is reprinted in full below.

April 19, 2017

The Texas Observer

Attn: Forrest Wilder, Editor

54 Chicon Street

Austin, TX 78702

Dear Mr. Wilder:

Christopher Collins did a great disservice to the aerial applicators of Texas by portraying them as lawless pilots “indiscriminately spraying chemicals” across Texas farm country in an article that was not only sensationalized but titled for maximum effect as “Death From Above.” Far from being reckless, ag pilots are highly-trained professionals committed to doing their job in a safe, efficient and responsible manner. In truth, Texas Observer’s April cover story was long on allegations, unsubstantiated complaints and inflammatory prose and short on evidence.

In Texas’s Cotton Country, crop dusters are ubiquitous for good reason—cotton would be impossible to produce on a mass scale without aerial support throughout the growing season. Ag pilots are aware of how visible they are and mindful that it makes them an inviting target, which is why they are anything but indiscriminate in how they dispense the plant health products they are hired to apply. As for applying “thousands of pounds of the herbicide Sendero” onto mesquite trees by air as the author inaccurately states, the rate for Sendero is 28 liquid ounces per acre; everything else in the spray tank is water.

The author asserts that from 2013 to 2016 complaints to the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) involving aerial applicators outnumbered cases involving ground-based applicators almost six to one. Complaints are not the same as findings of wrongdoing. Signs of paraquat damage are unmistakable, making such claims easy to prove or disprove. Readers have no way of knowing if the drift allegations levied against local aerial applicators are true or not, but TDA’s pesticide compliance division has a duty to find out. Until an investigation is complete, we would caution against passing judgment. An analysis of TDA’s actual findings would have been a fairer way to examine chemical drift. On a national level, pesticide drift occurrence studies conducted by the Association of American Pesticide Control Officials indicate aerial application accounts for less than 20 percent of all drift complaints.

As for the notion that some crop dusters see fines from TDA “merely as the cost of doing business,” we find that unlikely given that aerial applicators can only get so many fines before they lose their pesticide license. State penalties and fines could also affect their insurance rates, which is one of the biggest annual expenses for any aerial application business. If aerial applicators were as sloppy as the article contends, they would be dropped by insurance companies and out of business, or TDA or EPA would suspend or revoke their commercial pesticide licenses.

The aerial application industry is staunchly committed to mitigating drift through the precise application of products using cutting-edge drift reduction technologies and techniques. Technology has advanced greatly since the ’80s and ’90s. Today’s aircraft utilize sophisticated precision application equipment such as GPS, GIS (geographical information systems), flow controls, half-boom shutoff mechanisms, real-time meteorological measurement systems and smokers to determine wind speed and direction, advanced nozzles and precisely calibrated spray equipment. GPS is used in 99 percent of all crop dusting and allows for the precise application of pesticides and fertilizer, reducing environmental impacts.

NAAA works to educate aerial applicators nationwide on environmental professionalism and drift mitigation through our industry education program PAASS— Professional Aerial Applicators’ Support System. The program is supported by the EPA and reaches nearly 2,000 aerial applicators annually across the nation. Operation S.A.F.E. clinics allow ag pilots to properly calibrate their aircraft’s equipment and the output of each individual nozzle to ensure the aircraft spraying system is properly set up to make a targeted application. Statistics prove the industry’s diligence is paying off, as off-target pesticide applications have decreased by 26 percent since the introduction of PAASS in 1998.

Mr. Collins’ article ended ominously with the specter of violence, noting a woman monitoring a crop duster flying nearby with a pair of binoculars and a double-barreled shotgun in tow. Unfortunately, many ag pilots have been shot at simply for doing their jobs. Destruction of an aircraft is a federal offense, and as some Lone Star State residents have found out the hard way, they will be prosecuted for shooting or shooting at an ag aircraft. Two Texans were convicted in 2013 in separate cases. One was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after being found guilty of shooting an ag plane flying over his land. Another was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $297,000 in restitution for shooting at an ag plane working near his property. Reference to the gun-toting aerial application observer in the article was both journalistically irresponsible and shamelessly inciting in inviting violence.

Texas’s aerial applicators deserve better than to be threatened and have their reputations marred for providing a sorely needed service that helps farmers produce a safe, affordable and abundant supply of food, fiber and biofuel. They have been providing this service in the United States for 96 years.

Sincerely,

Andrew D. Moore

Executive Director