Welcome back to Season III of At the Iowa Farm Table!
This week Beth Hoffman digs into pesticide drift with Amanda Severson (Grand View Beef), Joel Meyer (Meyer Agri-Air Inc), and Rob Faux (a farmer and communications at Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network). You’ll learn about how the laws around drift are determined and what happens when they are broken. And all in 16 minutes!
The full transcript of the show is included below if you prefer reading to listening. You can also refer to it if you feel like you missed something said in the show. There are also links in the transcript (and in the resources list below) for you to see for yourself where data was found.
The Iowa Food System Coalition has also done a series of interviews with Iowa’s federal and state candidates—and asked them all about what they’d do about pesticide drift. Watch the 2026 Candidate Conversations to hear their responses.
Related Podcasts Mentioned in Episode
* Drenched in Chemicals
* Iowa, Farming and Cancer: What Do We Really Know?
Transcript
[Amanda Severson] I was sitting here at my desk. And there was somebody applying fungicide. I didn’t really think anything of it because they were flying back and forth, and it was loud and distracting, but they were over the field.
[Beth Hoffman] Amanda Severson and her husband Knute own Grand View Beef, an operation in north central Iowa specializing in grass feeding and finishing beef.
[AS] But then all of a sudden, I just watched as the plane looked like it was coming just straight at me, and he turned it off where he was supposed to, but you just kind of watched, like, this l- liquid whoosh come and land in my grass.
[BH] She and her family experienced a pesticide drift incident in the summer of 2026.
[AS] Our kids were actually outside. And I had to tell them, “Sorry, you got to come inside.” And then the next time they went out to the garden, I said, “I’m sorry, but you have to bring your cherry tomatoes in and we have to wash them now.”
[BH] According to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (aka IDALS), there were 257 reported pesticide drift incidents in Iowa in 2025. That’s a number that has not really gone up or down significantly in about a decade. But Amanda Severson and her husband Knute decided NOT to report the incident.
[AS] What Knute and I do here is already incredibly unique. There’s a lot of eyes on us, and not all of them positive, right? So we’ve always just kind of focused on, [00:11:00] let’s tell our story, let’s keep our heads down, do our best, love our neighbors and support them, and those are the ways that we can make small changes… 12:30 you just hate to, like, burn a bridge by being negative.
Short music to transition
[AS] You know, when, when spraying chemicals is the norm in a farm community- It’s really hard to be the one to say, “Are we supposed to be doing that? Is that okay? Can you change this?” Because none of the other neighbors are asking for it, it’s just us. So it gets a little challenging, knowing when to [00:20:00] speak up. 12:30 It’s such a hard call to make.
[BH] The Severson’s are likely not alone. Many of us would rather not make waves with our neighbors, especially those of us who farm differently from the corn and beans most of our neighbors grow. Plus, it takes time and energy to figure out the laws, to do all the paperwork, and pay for the lawyers.
[AS] I did try to look up after that happened, like what was the distance supposed to be and, I mean, because they just kind of [00:15:00] flew on our gravel road and did a pass. And I’m like, are they supposed to be leaving a buffer?.. I should do more research. But I think unfortunately we’ve normalized it. Like,... “Oh, well, we’re the weird ones, so we’re not going to complain. We’ll just keep quiet.”
MUSIC
[BH] I’m Beth Hoffman, journalist, author and farmer. And this is Season III of At the Iowa Farm Table, a production of the Iowa Food System Coalition. This week we’re talking about pesticide drift– how it happens and what can be done about it.
But let’s start at the beginning–what is pesticide drift?
According to IDALS pesticide drift is (quote) “the movement of pesticide dust or droplets through the air at the time of application or soon after, to any site other than the area intended.”
The definition continues “Avoiding ALL off-site movement is the responsibility of the applicator. All pesticide applicators must always read and follow label directions, including checking supplemental labels for additional information. The Label is the Law!”
The label is the law. But having a law and enforcing it are two different things, as we will hear.
[Joel Meyer] The label is designed to give us direction
[BH] That’s Joel Meyer, the president of Meyer Agri-Air Incorporated, an Agricultural Aviation company flying in its 33rd year. He is also a member of state and national industry groups. Meyer described to me what it takes to be able to spray pesticides by air.
[JM] You have to have a commercial pilot’s [00:02:00] license first of all
[BH] Then you have to prove that you can obtain the necessary insurance to fly on pesticides,
[JM] To make sure that we can be insured for what we’re trying to do.
[BH]…and then apply with IDALS for a license. It’s $75 for three years. There is a test…
[JM] They want to know that you know how to wear, your PPE. You need to know how increments of measure of what they [00:05:00] are, from ounce, you know, all the way through the gallons…they want you to know what you can mix together, as far as products. They want to know that you understand wind and drift and how to read the label, how to comply with a label.
[BH] Complying with the label is the basis of all pesticide laws. Labels detail everything from the wind speed a chemical can be applied in and the area (or buffer) between a water source and where spray is applied. Labels specify the size of the droplets that must be used, the height it needs to be flown on at and even the boom size to be used.
[JM] We can’t daydream while we’re sitting in the cockpit of an aircraft. 23 if we’re not certain which way the wind is from, but we continue on and spray anyway, you’re going to be subject to drift. Flying over houses, that is something we’re very sensitive to, you know. But it’s still part of our job to choose the right pattern, to make that it works out right, that you’re going to cover that producer’s field as he is having us do, but we need to do it in a safe manner. That’s, that is what being a good steward’s all about.
MUSIC
[BH] It is of course critical that applicators–in planes and on the ground–apply pesticides safely. And yet, what does “safe” really mean?
[Rob Faux] Now, I want to make this very clear. The key word here is about acceptable risk, not safety.
[BH] Rob Faux is the communications manager for Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network.
[RF] I’m also a steward of a small scale diversified farm in northeast Iowa.
Beth: And you’ve also experienced firsthand the drift situation, correct?
Rob: I have experienced the drift situation multiple times, in my position as a farmer and grower.
[BH] Rob Faux was featured in Season I of At the Iowa Farm Table in an episode called Drenched in Chemicals. He was literally ‘drenched in chemicals’ while doing chores on his farm. He did report the incident, and years later, after lengthy litigation, he received compensation because his entire crop of vegetables and eggs was destroyed for the season.
Since that experience, Faux has become an expert on the laws surrounding drift. And he pointed out to me that the US laws around pesticides do not ensure safety. What they do is try to minimize risk.
[RF] The EPA’s job is to look at the existing research, assess what’s there, and then determine if there is an acceptable risk to benefit ratio to register the product for use.
[BH] I did an entire podcast about how we assess chemicals in the US in order to ensure the risk is minimized–it was called Iowa, Farming and Cancer: What we Really Know. It was one of my favorite shows, and you should definitely check it out.
But here is a very short summary of the process of making a product legal: first a company studies the active ingredient in a product. The company applies for it to be made legal. The EPA assesses the data on the product, which again, is data provided from the company about one ingredient in the product.
So without going into great detail (because it is in the other show) the inherent problems with this scenario are that:
* The only thing studied is the active ingredient, although sometimes inactive ingredients or mixes of chemicals can be harmful, like in the popular herbicide RoundUp
* Farmers rarely spray only one product. Many different products are mixed into tanks and then put onto crops and the land.
* We don’t know what kinds of issues there may be with long term exposure to the mix of chemicals we have in Iowa that are sprayed year after year
But for people like Amanda Severson at Grand View Beef, none of this information was clear or easy to find. Nor is it likely comforting to know that what is being sprayed has not been deemed (quote) “safe.” It is a system where a government agency decided for us that the risk of danger was worth the economic benefits.
[AS] I really just wish there was an easier resource or place for us to go find the information. Even just like a fact sheet on applicators, application, what we could expect, what we should be looking for, who to call if we think [00:27:00] something’s not being done correctly, that type of stuff.
[BH] There is an information page for farmers and consumers on the IDALS website that has some good basic information. But, as I mentioned before, enforcing a law is quite different from having one in the first place. Rob Faux points out that, although the department is responsible for making sure the labels are followed, there are too few people and too much work to do so effectively.
[RF] They are essentially an investigative branch. They need to go out and figure out what actually happened as best as they can by determining if the use label was not followed. For example, if they did a spray application and the wind exceeded the amount that was [00:32:00] listed on the use label, don’t spray if the winds are over 15 miles an hour, for example. and once they determine that, they have a few things they can do.
[BH] IDALS declined to be interviewed for this episode, but their website lists the consequences for drift. It boils down to three main things: IDALS can give an official notice of a violation. They can issue penalties of up to $500, and they can suspend licenses.
But what about those who were sprayed? The IDALS website makes that clear. “Iowa Code Chapter 206 does not contain any provision for compensation to be made to individuals for a loss due to pesticide use.”
MUSIC
[RF] I want to go back to where you said that people don’t want to report a drift incident because they want to be a good neighbor and I want to turn that on its head.
[BH] Again, Rob Faux.
[RF] A good neighbor would come to me and say, “Tomorrow I’m going to be spraying these pesticides on the field that’s next to you. [00:52:00] And according to the use label, the period of time you should stay out of the spray zone, is 48 hours, and I want you to know about that in case there is a problem.” That would be a good neighbor. We need to create the culture of two-way good neighborship.
[BH] Right now, the state of Iowa does not require notification of spraying, which is something that is mandated in other states. Giving notice would give neighbors the chance to at least bring children and pets inside, even if the applicator didn’t know the exact day they would arrive.
Leaving buffers too around schools and other farms–especially those who grow crops grown for human consumption or organic fields–should also be mandated. And stiffer penalties in the state, a fund for those who lose wages and products because of drift, and more resources into the pesticide division to speed up response time to reports.
But Rob Faux also insists that it is important the public report incidents more.
[AS] It feels to folks who have been drifted on in the current system, like, “It’’s not worth my time to report this because nobody’s going to do anything about it.” 42 I will admit there have been a couple times that we feel like we’ve had some drift on our farm, and I didn’t go through the process. And I berate myself for not doing it, because when you make the reports, It provides documentation that there is in fact a real problem. This is a chicken or an egg thing kind of thing. We have to create the evidence to show that the [00:41:00] problem exists in order to convince legislators to create a law that empowers the Pesticide Bureau to do something more than what they do right now.
[BH] But it’s not just the number of reports we need. We also need transparency behind the ights is always saved and could be made available.
[JM] We have to be accountable. I mean, I can tell you right now that every path we take, whether the aircraft is leaving the loading zone or where it’s going, or circling the field doing clearing turns, that is all data that we save, whether the Department of Agriculture needs to see it or the FAA needs to see it or anybody else, that transparency is huge.
[BH] Currently IDALS only lists a single number for each year–the number of agricultural pesticide incidents. So I asked AI for help finding more detailed information. Deep in a legislative analysis of pesticide drift for 2022, was the kind of information IDALS has access to. 548 total investigations/inspections which resulted in 87 advisory notices, 25 civil penalties initiated, 1 license suspended, 166 warning letters, 7 cases referred to EPA, and “124 other actions.” That’s a lot of numbers to take in via a podcast, but suffice it to say that an analysis of this kind–gives us a lot more information to go by.
If we had access to maps of incidents, the names of companies that had their licenses suspended or civil penalties…then maybe we can start understanding the real impacts of drift on our families and communities.
Very special thanks to Amanda Severson, Joel Meyer, and Rob Faux. Erin Jordan of the Gazette has also done great reporting on this–I will link to her work, in the show notes as well. You’ve been listening to At the Iowa Farm Table with me, Beth Hoffman. This podcast is a production of the Iowa Food System Coalition, a group of more than 60 organizations working together to make food and farming in our state more just and sustainable.
Resources
Pesticide Use Investigations and Enforcement—This page is maintained by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and lists information on pesticide drift, including what to do if you experience an incident. IDALS declined to speak to us for this report.
Field Watch— Joel Meyer of Meyer Agricultural recommended this website as a place applicators check before spraying. Farms—particularly orchards, organic farms and others that cannot be sprayed—should register on the app and map land NOT to be sprayed. According to the website, “FieldWatch is a non-profit company with a FREE and VOLUNTARY mapping registry that promotes communication between producers of specialty and row crops, beekeepers, seed companies and pesticide applicators in support of ongoing stewardship activities. With easy-to-use, reliable, secure and FREE mappings tools, FieldWatch is a trusted source of data in North America, promoting sustainability for plants, pollinators, people and planet.”
An example of a label (atrazine) and correspondence with EPA
2026 Candidate Conversations—
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