Imagine being required to report highly detailed information regarding the use of a perfectly legal input in your household or business for the sole purpose of enabling the state to create an online database. The input might be heating oil, gasoline, or your lawn mower. The state would impose a high cost on your home or business if it required you to report how, when, and where you use any of those inputs, each time you use them. Surely the state would not impose such a burdensome and intrusive requirement on citizens using perfectly legal tools and materials. Yet that is precisely what some members of the Legislature are proposing with regard to the use of farm and lawn chemicals.

Farmers use chemicals to produce high-quality crops that Mainers and others around the world rely on for their food supply. The chemicals we use are approved and regulated by state and federal agencies. If the chemicals were not safe, we would not be allowed to use them. If they were not essential and effective, we would not choose to use them, as farm chemicals are very expensive.

Farmers use chemicals carefully and sparingly, always in accordance with published requirements. We are tested and certified to use farm chemicals. Our licenses are renewed every three years. There is no problem with the current regulatory program that L.D. 1770 is designed to address. It is merely an attempt to create a database of detailed information, with no mention of how that information will be used.

L.D. 1770 will impose a very high cost on the state and its farmers, while not providing any evident benefit. Mainers will be much better served if L.D. 1770 does not become law.

 

Dennis Wichelns

Manchester

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