Here are selected excerpts, along with timestamps you can skip to in the episode to hear more:
(4:48) Moore, on making organic aerial applications: “Our members do that work. They’ll take the work where the farmer needs it. It doesn’t matter if it’s conventionally grown or if it’s organically grown.”
(6:34) Moore, on aerial application’s unique selling proposition: “The reason why aerial application is so important is … its speed. You’re going across a field in a turbine powered engine, a turbine turboprop engine, at 120 mph. And as you know, as a farmer, when you have a pest infestation, what do you want to do? You want to treat it as quick as possible so it doesn’t affect your yields. Aerial application is by far the fastest way to treat a crop.”
(8:38) Moore, on cover cropping by air: “We do a lot of cover crop work…. Cover cropping has an advantage when it’s treated by air, because you can treat preharvest, which allows you to actually get more time to grow, say, a rye seed or a radish or whatever it is. So more time for that root to penetrate the soil, aerate the soil and provide that additional nutrient value and moisture retention for the soil as well. That’s another benefit of aerial application.”
(11:25) Moore, on educating policymakers about the techniques aerial applicators use to make targeted applications: “We wouldn’t exist as an industry if, one, we didn’t play a valuable role in food production, but two, if we didn’t continually evolve. And we are evolving in terms of new nozzles that are equipped to mitigate drift, knowing what that exact droplet size needs to be when it comes out of the aircraft. Not only that, but the angle of the nozzle and the pressure that’s pushing that nozzle out and how wide the boom is in relation to the wingspan. All these components we’ve learned so much about over the years, which allow us to make a much more targeted application, mitigating drift.”
(16:09, 19:16) Moore, on making public health applications, including aerial firefighting and mosquito abatement: “We do a lot of things. Primarily our members do treat crops, whether it’s seed or fertilize or protect them with crop protection products, but they also are diverse in the sense that they do firefighting and they do public health spraying.”
“Many diseases are transmitted by mosquitoes.… Well, our members do a lot of public health spraying for mosquito abatement. Just a couple of years ago it was Zika virus, which is a very brutal form of encephalitis. But whether it’s Zika, whether it’s dengue fever, other forms of encephalitis, aerial application helps eradicate mosquitoes that carry these deadly diseases, and other pests as well.”
(28:44) Moore, on the rate of accidents in the agricultural aviation industry: “We have probably about six to seven fatalities a year in our industry. But when you look at how many accidents that is per 100,000 hours flown, we probably have about seven accidents per 100,000 hours flown. And just as I mentioned before, as we’ve evolved technologically to make our applications safer, more efficacious, using less product to cover more acres, we’ve gone from an industry that probably had 13 accidents per 100,000 hours flown to six to seven. So, our numbers are getting better and better. And the purpose of our association, one of them, is to develop education and safety programs and work on developing new technologies to make these aerial applicators more safe and better stewards as well. And that’s our constant mission.”
(30:23) Moore, on the continued need for aerial application as the amount of chemicals used per pound of food produced lessens: “There’s fertilization that also needs to be done. There’s cover crops that need to be done. There’s seeding that needs to be done. So, and of course, I know you’ve had this conversation, but the products that are being manufactured and in the queue for registration at EPA today are pretty amazing in terms of how specific they can be in maybe eradicating a specific insect species or a specific weed, but also leaving beneficials alone and being safe for pollinators and so forth. So I think there’s always going to be a need for crop protection products.”
The Business of Agriculture Podcast covers the business of food, fuel and fiber through interviews with industry professionals and commentary from the podcast’s host.
