Cancelling Atrazine Would Cost Farmers $2.5 billion

The Environmental Protection Agency released its draft report on ecological risks of Atrazine in June of this year as part of its re-registration process for the herbicide. If the assessment recommendations are allowed to stand, farmers would essentially lose access to atrazine, and that would cost farmers a lot of money. The National Corn Growers Association says the EPA report could cost the industry up to $2.5 billion in yield losses and increased production costs, all at a time when incomes are down sharply. A 2012 University of Chicago study showed that farming without atrazine would cost farmers an extra $59 per acre. That is a large boost in costs when farm incomes have dropped 55 percent in the past two years. A jump in costs that high would not only affect producers but would have ramifications across the entire agribusiness industry.