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By Alice McFarlane

Pest Control

Farmers and ranchers unhappy with strychnine ban

Mar 5, 2020 | 1:07 PM

The fight is not over yet.

Farmers and ranchers were upset to learn by 2023 strychnine will not be available as a tool to control Richardson Ground Squirrels (RGS).

Pesticide Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) made the final decision to cancel the approved use of strychnine to control RGS following a lengthy re-evaluation.

Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association President Bill Huber said there’s still time for farmers and ranchers to express their concerns to PMRA. In the meantime, he said he’s disappointed with the decision.

“We will not be able to use strychnine at all,” Huber told farmnewsNOW. “It’s going to be phased out over the next three years, so next year, we’ll be able to buy it, the year after that we’ll be able to use up any products we have left. After the third year it will be fully banned.”

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Huber said every rancher and farmer in Western Canada knows the results of an overpopulation of the RGS.

“They can clean off hay fields, pasture land, even cropland, and eat it up and make an unruly mess in the field with their holes and mounds they’d make from digging. Strychnine two per cent liquid is the most effective thing that’s ever worked for control. I’ve used it and hundreds and hundreds of other ranchers have used it,” he said.

In 1992, Health Canada banned the use of strychnine and pulled the registration. Huber said populations exploded resulting in millions of dollars in losses to producers. In the years it has been made available populations have declined.

It wasn’t until 2001 that registration was reinstated. Huber said there were other products on the market between 1992 to 2001 but nothing worked as effectively as strychnine.

Huber said the Ministry of Agriculture conducted a study on strychnine in 2019.

“Non target species death from strychnine was limited to only a few deer mice that were found that had been killed. So very, very few species that are affected by this, and farmers or ranchers are very cautious of how they handle the product. They handle it very professionally and safely so that it doesn’t affect their own livestock or their animals or pets that could be in contact with the product,” he said.

SARM President Ray Orb said with a small proven environmental impact PMRA should be using the Ministry of Agriculture’s research. He said concerned groups and individuals will have 60 days to respond to the PMRA decision.

“To support the continued use of strychnine, not to discontinue it,” Orb said. “We plan to meet with Minister Marit and decision makers in Ottawa. SARM will take all steps needed to have the decision overturned or at minimum have our producers compensated for any crop damage due to gophers.”

PMRA stated the product will not be available after March 4, 2021 and fully banned for use March 4, 2023.

Huber said as farm groups lobby PMRA he said it’s disappointing it’s come to this.

“We’ve had PMRA out to Saskatchewan to meetings and met with some of their staff and showed them some of the results. We encourage these people to come out and get their boots on the ground and walk some of these fields where there is an overpopulation of RGS,” Huber said.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF