While You Were Merry, Christmas Tree Farmers Worried

down your own Christmas tree. Some of you did, but probably not most. Let's be honest. Most people's trees originate from Christmas tree farms, and like basically any crop that's grown on a farm, many Christmas trees are treated with pesticides.

Bloomberg Environments Adam Allentin covers the agriculture industry and specifically the environmental impact of pesticides, and he's here to tell us about one pesticide in particular that many Christmas tree farmers rely on and that may at some point in the future be banned. It is called colorpyrifos and it's designed to basically kill bugs. And Adam explain to the

listeners what colorpyrifos is like what does it do. Clorpyrifos is an insecticide produced by a company called Corteva Agriscience, which was spun off from Dow DuPont, And it's an insecticide that's used on a variety of crops, from fruits and corn to Christmas trees. And it's a broad spectrum insecticide,

meaning that it kills a wide variety of pests. It's also a pretty potent neurotoxin, meaning that it impacts the nervous system of the pesthetic kills and because of that, it's been proven there have been studies that shown that there are potential health impacts on developing fetuses and young children. Because of that, it's been banned in several states in the United States and plans to ban it in the

EU as well. That is an issue that you know, I think a lot of pesticides run into, which is that, you know, how do you make it potent enough that it does what you wanted to do, but not so potent that it's dangerous. It's something that these farmers rely on a lot, Like they say, they really really need this right well, I mean, if you think of a Christmas tree, you know it's not a crop that is harvested every year. It takes you know, between seven to ten years to grow a tree that you then cut

down and take to market. That long, yeah, so it can you know farmers and they have to apply these pesticides every year during that time, so they've got a lot of investment tied up in those trees, and you would understand, you know, why they would be hesitant to risk a chemical that maybe doesn't work quite as well or cost a bit more if they could, you know, if they risk losing that tree in a sixth or seventh year, that's a lot of money down the drain.

So yeah, I mean, I can only imagine like if you're a farmer and you're you know, growing a tree for six years or seven years, and you're about to harvest it and then all of a sudden, like a beetle comes along and just completely eats it out from the inside. That's a lot of money you lost. Yeah. And the strange thing is is these pests tend to attack the mature trees, you know, once they get big enough and they're planted in the field and the branches

between trees kind of start to grow together. So those those needle midges and weavils and whatnot can move between trees quickly. That's when you start to see those impacts needle midges. That sounds pretty unpleasant. But so we don't eat Christmas trees obviously, that's I think that goes without saying, and I think that's one of the reasons why people don't think about buying organic Christmas trees. Maybe some people do, but I don't think it's really a big thing out there.

Is that something that is even an option, Like if you wanted to buy Christmas trees that hadn't been treated with pesticides. Certainly there are farms that you know, are you know, organic certified or farms where they don't spray any synthetic pesticides. And it should also be you know, we should just say that, you know, a tree that has been treated with clorpyrifoss is not likely to be

a risk in your house. You know, if it was sprayed in June or July and by the time it gets to you in December, there will be almost no residue on that tree at all. It's the main concern for the chemical in this specific industry is the potential impacts on farm workers and the downstream impacts of the chemical getting into like the water table and streams and rivers and things like that. That's the main concern from environmentalists. It's not that we're as you say, we're not eating this.

It's not the same situation like other crops that have a specific tolerance or residue level that EPA sets for how much of that chemical can be on the fruit and still be safe for humans. That's not the case here. The case is that, you know, this is a niche industry and there aren't that many chemicals available to some of these farmers, and if they lose clorpyrifoss, they'll have to switch to something else that make and those costs

get passed down to us. Yeah, so we're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, we'll talk more about why this is important for Christmas trees and about what's happening to this chemical and what could be happening in the future. Stay tuned. Yeah, we're back and we are talking with Adam Allington, Bloomberg Environments Agriculture reporter

about the pesticides that are used on Christmas trees. So one of the things that is pretty notable about this pesticide, clorpyrifoss is that it is being banned in certain places. What's going on with us? Yeah, that's right. You know, it should be said that the EPA, before or the current administration came in, the US EPA was planning on

banning the chemical nationally, the oationwide, nationwide. And basically the first order of business under the Trump administration when Scott Pruitt came in was to put the brakes on that and to basically scrap that whole plan. And because of that you have now you have states like California, New York State recently announced plans to phase out clark parafosk.

States have the power to ban pasticides in their boundaries, and you know, that's kind of where where we're at now, and so you can kind of see the writing on the wall. Pretty soon it'll be more states and then you know, maybe at some point another talk of a national ban. So what does this mean for Christmas tree farmers?

You know, is this something where it's an inconvenience for them, But they'll eventually figure out a way to get around it, maybe use a different chemical or maybe grow their trees in a different way, or is this something where it's going to be really hard for them to great without clorpyrifos. Oh, I think, you know, I mean this happens, you know periodically in agriculture when a when a chemical or a pesticide is you know, goes away, they find alternatives, and

I think there are alternatives that already exist. As I said, you know, this is just a chemical that tends to work pretty well for the applications that it's being used for, and it's also cheaper. Trees in the future may cost a bit more. There may be other chemicals that are developed that you know that take take the place of clorpyrifos and it you know, it's not every farm that needs this chemical as much, and you know, it kind

of depends on where you are in the country. You know, what kind of trees you're growing, you know, your sort of garden variety, Douglas fur, Christmas tree, the iconic. Yeah, you know, most of those are grown in North Carolina and they yeah, they don't they don't need clorpyrifoss as much down there because the pests that impact douglas fur in that in that ecosystem can be hand with other chemicals. However, in Oregon, farmers out there tend to use it a

lot more you know, more mountainous terrain. It's harder to spray with like a traditional rig towed by a tractor, you know, steep mountain cliffs, so they kind of have to apply it aerially. And so that's that's where CLOrk pyrifoss is more. And you know, Oregon produces you know, the most Christmas trees of any state in the country, some like five million trees per year. So overall, it sounds like if CLOrk pyrifos is banned nationwide or even globally,

you know, who knows. You know, you'll still be able to get Christmas trees. They may be a little more expensive, maybe able to be a little harder to find, but ultimately, you know, it sounds like there won't be ay hey, Christmas tree apocalypse. Yeah, I don't think there'll be a Christmas tree you know, you know, the industry is not gonna create or you're not You're not gonna see people get into fist fights in the streets saying, you know,

over a Christmas tree. Probably not because of this. It's just you know, the these little these little subplots that come up in these in these particular industries I think are fascinating because they kind of show this turnover that you see a lot in agriculture, you know, from one chemical to another, and then that chemical is the new thing for a while, and then we find out that there's all these interests, you know, all these potentially problematic

side effects of the new chemical, and so it's a constant process of cycling in new active ingredients. You know. The last thing I wanted to mention is that one of the reasons why this interested me is a because it's a you know, fun seasonal story, of course, but also because this is a niche crop. You know, I think for corn and soy and wheat, you know, there's a huge, huge market. They're constantly developing new products, new pesticides that can you know, be uh, you know, help

farmers get rid of past for those crops. But for Christmas trees, I mean, it doesn't get much more niche than that, and you know, these farmers, it seems like, don't have a lot of options, that's right, you bayers, probably not developing the next big you know, pesticide for Christmas trees or any other forest product. They're focused more on, you know, your standard bro crops. You know there are products I should you know, we should say there are

products available, and so they will have some options. It's just a question of does it work as well do you have to maybe use more of that chemical which then creates a whole other set of cascading impacts as well, And so, you know, maybe we'll see, you know, after some of these bands have been in place for a few years in some states, we may find that it wasn't as big of an impact as we thought. But for right now, some you know, a lot of the

farmers I spoke to or are pretty concerned. Well, that'll be an interesting, uh maybe unintentional experiment, and Adam Allington will be covering it. That was Bloomberg Environments Adam Allenton talking about what else Christmas trees. If you want to see more of his reporting on agriculture and its environmental impacts and visit our website news dot Bloomberg Environment dot com. That website is news dot Bloomberg Environment dot com and if you want to chat with us on social media,

use the hashtag parts per bat. Today's episode of The Parts Pavilion was produced by myself along with Marisson Horn, Jessica Coombs, and Rjjewele. Music for this episode is a Message by Jizarre and Christmas Tree Blues by Loriann Robinson and Emmanuel Frasciani. They were used under a Creative Commons license. Thanks for listening and PLA's shout out to about Hi there. I'm Amanda Icon, co host of Talking Tax. Each week we dig into the biggest tax and financial accounting challenges

and opportunities for policy to on the ground realities. We bring you corporate leaders, accountants and industry insiders. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. For more, check us out on News dot Bloomberg, tax dot com.