NAAA AGDISP Press Release Earns Media Coverage; NCGA Contributes to Project

Last week’s press release highlighting ongoing efforts to modernize the AGDISP pesticide drift modeling software to ultimately facilitate more pesticide label flexibility for applicators utilizing drift reduction technologies, aided by a recent grant from The Cotton Foundation, garnered media coverage across U.S. agricultural news outlets. In addition to successfully modernize AGDISP, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) made a generous contribution to aiding the AGDISP modernization efforts.

We thank NCGA for their contribution. Modernizing AGDISP is a $600,000 endeavor and $370,000 has been raised.

NAAA CEO Andrew Moore discussed AGDISP and the need for modernization of the pesticide drift software with RFD-TV’s Market Day Report last Thursday. He spoke with anchor Jennifer Vickery Smith from NAAA’s headquarters in Virginia. Market Day Report is RFD-TV’s most-watched weekly live news program broadcast to 48 million homes nationwide.

During the live television interview, Moore reiterated that the AGDISP software is written with an older code. He added that updating it will facilitate drift reduction technologies to be incorporated into the model that EPA uses to determine the movement of applied pesticides, resulting in possibly more flexibility for applicators who use such technologies. These improvements to AGDISP are essential to improve accuracy and make the model accessible to other software developers, so AGDISP can be further adapted to include modeling of other drift reduction technologies and application conditions to benefit all stakeholders across the pesticide industry, regardless of application type (aerial, ground, unmanned aerial, etc.).

The press release was also featured on AgriMarketing’s website and in their e-newsletter.