Pesticide Drift

| September 4, 2020
Pesticide spray drift

When pesticides are applied, they can move through the air to nearby homes, schools and farms — and many pesticides can be harmful to health or neighboring crops. This type of drift — when a pesticide application misses its target — is called spray drift.

Another common kind of drift that is also dangerous, but less recognized, is  volatilization drift. This happens when pesticides slowly evaporate into the air from the soil or plants after application, and it can take place over the course of many days.

Pesticideinfo.org includes a “drift prone” rating for all pesticides in the database. This is derived from the chemical’s vapor pressure, the physical property that most affects its ability to drift. For details on the data behind the rating, visit the Sources and Methodology page.

Health harms, financial losses

The health harms of breathing drifting pesticides — “inhalation exposure” — are often overlooked or underestimated by government officials. Pesticide exposure can lead to serious medical consequences, so it’s important to take all incidents seriously and immediately seek medical attention (see below). In addition to affecting people, when pesticides drift from their intended targets they can damage ecosystems, pets, and wildlife.

For farmers, herbicides drifting from a neighbor’s farm can wipe out an entire season’s worth of crops. Between 2017 to 2019, for example, farmers reported thousands of dicamba drift episodes, causing damage to millions of acres of soybeans as well as vegetables, fruit trees, gardens, and residential trees.

Financial losses can be staggering, with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. Jordan Scheibel, a vegetable farmer from central Iowa, described his concerns:

Pesticides drifting from nearby fields is a very real problem for farmers in Iowa. These are not isolated incidents and no one is helped when they are swept under the rug or treated as collateral damage we have to overlook as an agricultural state. It’s a serious economic, public health, and legal issue.

Responding to Drift

Sometimes drifting pesticides are visible as a cloud of spray droplets, as dust during application, or as a lingering unpleasant odor. Drift can also be invisible and odorless, and can be present for several days after pesticides are applied. PAN works with communities across the country to document exposure to drifting pesticides using a simple Drift Catcher device.

PAN scientists also monitor state data on drift incidents and damage where the information exists, and organizers work with partners and communities to win protective policy measures, like the pesticide buffer zones around California schools that went into effect in January 2018.

Alongside a coalition of Iowa farmers’ organizations, PAN is also working to protect farmers suffering crop damage from drift by passing commonsense laws to improve incident reporting, speed up investigations, and ensure adequate compensation for drift damage.

If you’ve been drifted on

If you’ve been exposed to pesticide drift or have lost crops due to drift damage, you should seek medical attention immediately, and report the incident to both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and to your state agency:

  • The National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC) will report pesticide incidents to the U.S. EPA. Call 1-800-858-7378 from 8:00AM – 12:00PM PST.
  • Each state has an agency for reporting pesticide incidents. Find your state on the NPIC webpage, and call the appropriate agency to have them record a report.
  • In California, calling 1-877-378-5463 should connect you with the appropriate office.

Download the PAN In Case of Drift toolkit below for details on how to protect your health, how and where to report drift incidents, and how to seek compensation for crop loss if you’re a farmer. The toolkit also includes guidance for telling your story to legislators and other policymakers for those who are interested in doing so.

Additional drift resources:

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