American Farm Bureau Federation’s Courtney Briggs says per- and polyfluoralkyl substances or PFAS is an emerging issue for the nation’s farmers and ranchers.
She says the agriculture industry could be negatively impacted by a proposed rule by the U.S. EPA to designate two of the most common PFAS chemicals – Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) – as hazardous materials.
“One of our greatest frustrations is a lot of the research and a lot of the technology development hasn’t been completed yet and the EPA is moving forward with a very serious rulemaking that could bring farmers into liability for PFAS cleanup,” she says.