The culture that AG Phil Weiser has fostered at the AG's office. Palmer Amaranth and Sugar Beets: emergency approval isn't just for medicines.
The culture that AG Phil Weiser has fostered at the AG's office.
I got in a spat with the CPW commissioners and the AG's office over their handling of the Jan 10th 2024 meeting at which my mic was cut and I was kicked out of the remote meeting.
This spat led to a lawsuit, which led to a settlement agreement between myself and the AG's office (the state's attorney).
In my June 18th op ed (linked below), I alluded to this settlement because it took this long to finally arrive at one.
I wish that had been the end of the story. It wasn't.
In order to keep this short (and to not whine), I will skip the details. The main point was that the settlement that I and the AG's office agreed to did not happen.
They did not hold up their end of the bargain and didn't have the decency to tell me that this was their intent.
I told my lawyer to go ahead with the lawsuit, and, after some posturing and back and forth, they wanted to sit back down at the negotiating table.
You'll pardon me, but I thought this sort of behavior was unacceptable. I am not sure about the AG, nor the people at his office, but I was raised such that when you make an agreement, you keep it. When you give your word, you stand by it. If you don't want to do that, you don't give your word.
Part of the second run at a settlement involved a letter written by me to go to the AG directly (he insulates himself from the public, especially the public that disagrees with what he does pretty well).
That letter is in the attached screenshot.
Keep what you see there in mind when the AG bloviates about decency, treating others with respect, and the rule of law. His actions, both personally and in terms of what he allows in his office, do not match his words.
Palmer Amaranth and Sugar Beets: emergency approval isn't just for medicines.
I have a running joke with a friend who farms about amaranth.
I have grown amaranth in my garden more than once. I'll be growing it again too. I like to add it to homemade breads as well as pop it like corn for homemade energy bars. My friend grows it too, but not voluntarily. I.e. he gets it as a weed.
The difference here is what you see in the picture at the top of this post. The kind of amaranth that is an invasive weed is on the left and the kind you grow to eat is on the right. The weed is known as Palmer Amaranth (PA).* The eating kind on the right is just one variety too. There are other varieties and colors.
Our joke is that my friend tells me I can come and take as much of his amaranth as I'd like. Both the weed and cultivated kind are edible, leaves and seeds both. I pass, but I'm always kind enough to offer him some of my seeds if he'd like.
The FencePost article below caught my eye (and was ripe for sharing) because of the information on PA and also because it touches on something I was unaware of: there is an approval process (including emergency approvals) for herbicides just like medicines. I guess I didn't realize the market had that many regulations and rules.
There has been a growing problem lately of PA infesting sugar beet fields. Weeds, because they compete with crops, reduce yields and enough of a problem with PA was developing that growers and sugar companies got concerned.
A good deal of time, research, and money has gone into controlling PA in sugar beet fields.** It turns out that Europe seemed to have an herbicide which was a likely candidate to control PA in sugar beet fields. The thing is, that there is no license for this herbicide in the US. Not a lot of stomach to wait for the problem to worsen before it got here and got approved either.
Just as you might do if you think there's a drug that would help patients but can't wait for government approval, you can get an emergency license for herbicide. Quoting the article,
"While it has been used for decades in Europe Goltix, and its active ingredient, had never been registered in the U.S. The normal process for creating a pesticide label is time consuming and expensive, however in emergency situations, where farmers are facing significant economic loss and there is no other available pesticide to manage a pest, an emergency use label can by granted by the Environmental Protection Agency. Western Sugar was beginning to look at substantial yield loss without the herbicide. 'This is really the only herbicide that was an option,' Lawrence [Nevin Lawrence, Nebraska Extension weed management specialist] said. 'So, they decided to go for what’s called a Section 18 or an emergency use label. This was the first time. As far as I’m aware, they’ve granted an emergency use label for an herbicide that had never been labeled in the U.S.'”
The emergency use label was received for 2024, but will have to be updated yearly until the government's approval catches up.
I'm not sure if you were already aware, but this whole thing was news to me. I suppose I can see why the government would want to license things like these, but it just never occurred that the process would be this involved.
I can say too that I'm glad they figured something out. Not only do sugar beets make up a big portion of the economy out in my area of the Plains, but I love that sweet, sweet sugar.
*Poor Palmer to have his name attached to a noxious weed ...
**As I have written before, do not make the mistake that farming is merely putting things in the dirt and waiting for them to grow. To get a sense of the scale of the effort at bringing just one herbicide into use, read the article. It was YEARS of research.