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As your eyes and ears at the capitol, we were in attendance to welcome legislators into the new biennium on your behalf on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. Following the election in November, where all 125 House of Representatives seats and 40 Senate seats were open, more than 30 new lawmakers were sworn in to represent their districts’ interests. Governor Laura Kelly delivered the annual State of the State address on Wednesday where she focused on economic development initiatives, a new strategic plan to conserve water and her disagreement toward republican leadership’s...

The selection committee for the Tomorrow’s Agribusiness Leaders (TAL) program met in early-December to review applications and select five members of the Kansas Agribusiness Retailers Association and five members of the Kansas Grain and Feed Association to comprise the 27th class of agribusiness’ premier leadership development course. The selection committee of TAL alumni chose: Justin Aude (Frontier Farm Credit); Byron Bina (MKC); Bryant Blank (Lockton Companies); Jordan Burris (Cornerstone Ag, LLC); Casey Carlson (Producer Ag, LLC); Courtney Crawford (ProValue Insurance); Jeff Krehbiel (Kanza Cooperative Association); John O'Leary (Pride Ag Resources); Sarah...

Kansas Agribusiness Retailers Association (KARA) has joined a letter of support addressed to the United States Senate Agriculture Committee leadership supporting Brooke Rollins nomination as the 33rd Secretary of Agriculture. The letter, signed by more than 20 national and state agribusiness organizations, urged the committee and United States senate in its entirety to promptly confirm Rollins as the next United States Dept. of Agriculture secretary due to the many difficulties facing the country's farmers and rural America. The organizations representing farmers, ranchers, hunters, forest owners, conservationists, cooperatives, state departments of agriculture...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing a final order terminating all food uses, except for 11 crops in specified states, for six Drexel and three Loveland chlorpyrifos products. The Drexel products include Drexel Chlorpyrifos 15G (Reg. No. 19713-505), Drexel Chlorpyrifos 4E-AG (Reg. No. 19713-520), Drexel Chlorpyrifos 15GR (Reg. No. 19713-521), Drexel Chlorpyrifos Technical (Reg. No. 19713-573), Drexel Chlorpyrifos 4E-AG2 (Reg. No. 19713-599), and Drexel Lambdafos Insecticide (Reg. No. 19713-671). The Loveland products include Warhawk (Reg. No. 34704-857), Warhawk Clearform (Reg. No. 34704-1077), and Match-Up Insecticide (Reg. No. 34704-1086). EPA is also...

On Thursday, December 12, 2024, Kansas Agribusiness Retailers Association (KARA) participated in the Kansas Dept. of Agriculture’s (KDA) Plant Protection and Weed Control Program stakeholder meeting to discuss proposed changes to the noxious weed list in agency regulations. The proposed changes, in the document available via the link below, were recommended to KDA Secretary Mike Beam by the Noxious Weed Advisory Board. KARA maintains a seat on the Noxious Weed Advisory Board. There were about a dozen attendees to the stakeholder meeting. The proposed regulation changes will remove pignut from the state...

2024 Election Report The 2024 election was full of surprises. Below is an initial overview. Mail in ballots will continue to be counted until Friday, meaning a couple of close races may still change. The final votes will be certified sometime next week. All unofficial election results can be found on the Kansas Secretary of State’s website. President of the United States Former president Donald Trump won 57 percent of the vote in Kansas, roughly the same as in 2016 and 2020. United States Congress District 1: Incumbent Republican Tracey Mann won reelection in the...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing an amendment to the existing stocks provisions for the Kaizen Technologies LLC (Kaizen) chlorpyrifos end-use product “Bifenchlor” to allow for sale, distribution, and use for a limited time. The 2023 court decision vacating the 2021 chlorpyrifos tolerance revocation rule reinstated tolerances for products that registrants had previously voluntarily cancelled. Granting this amendment ensures greater consistency across chlorpyrifos products. Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate insecticide that has been used for many food crops, including growing soybeans, fruit and nut trees, broccoli, cauliflower, and other row...

On June 23, 2024, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposed interim registration review and decision for dimethoate pesticide as required by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, 7 U.S.C. 136a(g). EPA published a notice of its interim decision for public review and comment. As set forth in its interim decision, EPA determined that the benefits of the use of dimethoate on crops such as corn, soybeans, and wheat, were low. As such, EPA proposes to remove dimethoate label registration for use of the product on those crops....

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released its final Herbicide Strategy, which is designed to protect over 900 federally endangered and threatened (listed) species from the potential impacts of herbicide. The EPA indicated it will use the strategy to identify measures to reduce the amount of herbicide exposure to these species when it registers new herbicides and when it reevaluates registered herbicides under a process called registration review. The agency says the final strategy incorporates a wide range of stakeholder input that will protect species but also preserve a wide range of...

Kansas Agribusiness Retailers Association (KARA) joined nearly 200 organizations in sending a letter to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requesting the agency engage with stakeholders to discuss improvements to its Endangered Species Act risk assessment process for pesticides. The letter highlights why EPA has both a responsibility and would benefit from using more refined risk assessment processes, identifies potential improvements that could be used, and calls on the agency to expeditiously engage with stakeholders to improve its ESA risk assessment processes. Under the ESA, all federal agencies, including EPA, are...

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