NAAA has objected to an over-the-top column in The Moline (Ill.) Dispatch, an ill-informed diatribe against crop dusters flying and treating fields in the vicinity of other area residents.

Writing under the headline “Airborne chemical attacks no laughing matter,” the column was written by a person who was put off by an ag pilot who flew by his house while servicing a nearby field, claiming a “mechanical roar assaulted” his dining room and shook the house. “Again and again, brief moments of peace were followed by a violent thunder that rattled windows and sent dishes sliding across tables,” the writer asserted. That prompted the author, a self-described former New Yorker who moved to his wife’s hometown of rural Aledo, Ill. (population 3,700), to go on an almost laughable rant carping about being subjected to “an aerial bombardment” and fretting about droplets of “aerosol death” wafting in his direction.

NAAA sent a letter to the editor to The Moline Dispatch taking issue with the columnist’s attack on aerial applicators. As NAAA makes clear in its response, the column was both ridiculous and offensive to aerial applicators, to the point, frankly, it’s surprising it merited published at all. NAAA Executive Director Andrew Moore’s letter is reprinted in full below.

August 2, 2017

The Dispatch and Rock Island Argus

Attn: Letters to the Editor

1720 Fifth Avenue

Moline, IL 61265

Dear Editor:

“Maybe I’m overacting,” Frank Mullen III suggested in his July 26 column alleging that an ag pilot treating a field near his residence was subjecting him to an “airborne chemical attack.” The New York transplant can be forgiven for not being fully acclimated to life in ag country, but there is no “maybe” about it: Mr. Mullen’s attack on agricultural aviation was way off base. The suggestion that agricultural pilots are dispensing “aerosol death,” perhaps unwittingly on farmers’ neighbors, would almost be comical in its naïveté if it didn’t besmirch ag pilots’ reputations so unnecessarily. Ag pilots are highly trained professionals who take their responsibility to protect the safety of their neighbors, employees, the public and the environment very seriously. The only thing the pilot in question was guilty of is performing routine, safe and legal aerial application work for a customer depending on him to provide it.

In Illinois and other agricultural-producing states, crop dusters are prevalent for good reason. When disease, weeds or insects threaten a crop or it needs nutrients or seeding, aerial application is by far the fastest and most economical way to aid farmers. Aerial application also translates to higher crop yields and is vital for combating pests that threaten public health, such as West Nile Virus carrying mosquitoes. The fact is pesticides play an important role in sustaining our food supply, even in organic agriculture.

NAAA believes the paramount method for respecting and protecting the viability of human health and the environment is through the efficacious and precise application of products. The EPA tests all products available for application to ensure its safety to human health and the environment. If it doesn’t pass those multitudes of tests, it never enters the marketplace. Aerial applicators mitigate drift by using cutting-edge drift reduction technologies and techniques, such as GPS, flow controls, half-boom shutoff mechanisms, real-time meteorological measurement systems and smokers to determine wind speed and direction, and precisely calibrated spray equipment.

Illinois’s aerial applicators deserve better than to be accused of attacking communities with “chemical weaponry” simply for providing a sorely needed service that helps farmers produce a safe, affordable and abundant supply of food, fiber and biofuel. Aerial applicators have been providing this service in the United States for 96 years.

Sincerely,

Andrew D. Moore

Executive Director