Everyone is invited to join the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association and Illinois Soybean Association legislative reception on March 22nd at the Lincoln Hotel in Springfield.  This year's reception will be held in the evening from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.  This is a great opportunity to meet local legislators and also hear IFCA and ILSoy discuss issues pertaining to the needs of the ag ...more

Illinois recently became one of three states to require employers to offer paid time off for any reason.  This will take effect next year.   Beginning Jan. 1st, 2024, Illinois employers must offer workers paid time off based on hours worked, with no need to explain the reason for their absence if they provide notice in accordance with reasonable employer standards.   Currently only Maine ...more

As spring is quickly approaching, a few reminders for record keeping when applying or selling pesticides to your customers.   Pesticide dealers shall retain a record of all sales of restricted use pesticides or pesticides that the Director has declared to be a pesticide requiring a permit for two (2) years. The record shall include, but is not limited to, the following for each individual sale ...more

IFCA is actively watching and working over 70 pieces of legislation at the state capitol. Click on IFCA's “News Under the Dome” to see what IFCA is monitoring this spring session at the Illinois General Assembly.   IFCA will inform our membership if any of these pieces of legislation start to move in the senate or in the house. As always, if ...more

The American Agronomic Stewardship Alliance (AASA) is hosting a 30-minute webinar on March 2, 2023 from 10-10:30 AM Central Time. In the webinar, Jean Payne and Dave Powers from AASA will review the AASA bulk pesticide facility inspection program and the key USEPA requirements for bulk pesticide containment, transfer areas, repackaging and labeling, and share the resources available for in-depth understanding of the rules governing bulk pesticides. ...more

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that no over-the-top (OTT) application of dicamba to dicamba trait soybean can be made after June 12 or the V4 stage. This is a federal ruling and must be observed for all OTT dicamba applications to soybean in Illinois. IFCA has been in communication with the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDA) on this issue, and ...more

Following proposed mitigation measures announced last year by the U.S. EPA, the deadline to submit comments supporting the continued use of rodenticide products was Monday, February 13th, 2023. IFCA submitted comments opposing EPA’s most recent proposals, which included mitigation measures for eleven rodenticides. These measures involved adding additional requirements to labels, reclassifying some products as Restricted Use Pesticides, as well as resulting ...more

As a reminder, as the spring season approaches, anyone that handles or transports ammonia is now also responsible for achieving anhydrous ammonia certification. The easiest way to ensure your grower-customers attain their annual ammonia certification is to have them visit the IDA website and sit through the online training. This can be found by clicking here. For anyone looking to host an in-person grower ammonia ...more

NREC is supporting a project led by Dr. Andrew Margenot of UI that is focused on sampling soil locations throughout Illinois that had previously been sampled dating back to 1899. The goal of the project is to compare modern soil samples with the original samples to gain insight on how Illinois soils have changed over the last 120 years. This will ultimately enable improvements in soil fertility ...more

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed a lawsuit last week in Cook County against several manufacturers of PFAS products sold in the State of Illinois as consumer goods and for use in industrial processes. The suit alleges that these manufacturers have known for decades that PFAS are toxic and pose substantial health and environmental risks, yet continue to actively promote the chemicals as safe ...more