New Zealand’s Environmental Protection Authority has set up a working group to review the use of the chemical DCPA here after a decision by United States authorities to pull the chemical from sale there.
For the first time in 40 years the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) issued an emergency order this month suspending sales of a weedkiller containing the chemical on the grounds it is linked to serious birth defects in unborn babies.
DCPA is sold as Dacthal and Chlor-Back herbicide, and is used on crops including onions, broccoli, brussels sprouts and cabbages to control annual and broadleaf weeds.
A search on the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines register indicates two companies market products with the base in NZ – Orion AgriScience and AgNova Technologies NZ Limited.
AgNova’s Australian office has referred Farmers Weekly inquiries on whether it will continue to sell the product to its global headquarters.
Animal and Plant Health NZ, the body representing chemical producers, also directed Farmers Weekly to AgNova for comment.
The US authorities determined DCPA was dangerous enough to warrant immediate removal.
US EPA assistant administrator Michal Freedhoff said in a New York Times article that pregnant women who may never even know they were exposed could give birth to babies that experienced irreversible lifelong health problems.
Nonprofit independent online media Grist reported that US farm worker groups have celebrated the suspension of DCPA, given that pregnant women working on farms can be exposed to levels four to 20 times greater than what the US EPA estimates is safe.
The decision came after gathering data for a decade between 2013 and 2023. There had been warnings in place not to enter treated fields for 12 hours post spraying, but the US EPA found in many cases fields remained too dangerous to enter for as long as 25 days or more.
NZ’s EPA said it takes very seriously any significant new information about the potential effects of chemicals currently used in NZ. The working group will determine what actions to take, if any.
This story has been updated to show DCPA is found in Dacthal and Chlor-Back, not Arrow as previously stated.
