Vermont has moved to outlaw paraquat, positioning the small New England state at the center of a national fight over agricultural chemicals, public health, and the future of American farming.
The state has become the first in the nation to ban paraquat, one of the most widely used herbicides in modern agriculture, with lawmakers pointing to research suggesting a possible connection between the weed killer and Parkinsons disease. According to Breitbart, the measure has been hailed by activist groups and Parkinsons advocates who hope Vermonts decision will pressure other states to follow suit, even as federal regulators maintain there is no definitive proof the chemical causes the degenerative neurological disorder.
Supporters of the ban frame it as a moral imperative, arguing that the risk to human health outweighs the benefits to crop yields and farm efficiency. The neurologic disease in question, Parkinsons, robs individuals of control over their movements and affects roughly 1 million Americans, making any suspected environmental trigger a lightning rod for political and legal action.
Vermont took the step to be the leader in this, and thats significant because it shifts the conversation, said Dan Feehan of The Michael J. Fox Foundation, the worlds largest nonprofit funder of Parkinsons research. Now, will your state be the last to ban it? becomes the question.
Yet for many farmers, especially small and family-owned operations already squeezed by inflation, regulatory costs, and competition from larger agribusinesses, the ban represents another government-imposed burden on their ability to stay afloat. They warn that removing a cost-effective, highly efficient herbicide from their toolkit could further erode already thin profit margins and make it harder to compete with growers in states that still allow paraquat.
Attempts to restrict or prohibit paraquat in other states where its use is far more prevalent have repeatedly stalled, reflecting a deeper divide between activist-driven environmental policy and the practical realities of large-scale food production. Lawmakers in agricultural regions have been reluctant to embrace bans that could raise production costs, reduce yields, and ultimately drive up prices for consumers.
At the federal level, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently reviewing the safety of paraquat, but so far has stated there is no clear causal link between the herbicide and Parkinsons disease. That position underscores a broader tension in regulatory policy: whether to act on precautionary grounds in the absence of conclusive proof, or to wait for definitive scientific consensus before imposing sweeping restrictions that reshape entire industries.
Syngenta, the Swiss chemical company that has manufactured paraquat for decades, announced earlier this year that it would cease global manufacturing and sales of the product, even as it continued to defend the herbicides safety record. Other companies, however, still produce and sell paraquat, ensuring that the chemical remains widely available in much of the United States and abroad.
Despite decades of investigation and more than 1,200 epidemiological and laboratory studies of paraquat, no scientist or doctor has ever concluded in a peer-reviewed scientific analysis that paraquat causes Parkinsons disease, the company said. That statement highlights a key point often ignored in activist rhetoric: correlation in observational studies does not automatically equal causation, particularly in complex diseases with multiple genetic and environmental factors.
Paraquat has been a staple of American agriculture since its introduction in 1964, prized for its effectiveness in killing weeds quickly and reliably. It is also known as an extremely toxic substance, fatal if ingested and capable of causing serious health problems upon contact, which has led regulators to impose special handling requirements.
Farmworkers and applicators face the greatest risk, prompting the EPA to mandate a dedicated training program for certified paraquat users. The training, which lasts about an hour, requires applicators to pass a 15-question quiz and must be renewed every three years, a modest regulatory hurdle compared with the outright prohibition now adopted in Vermont.
The herbicide is commonly used to protect soybean, cotton, and corn crops, as well as apples and grapes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. As of 2018, the agency estimated that more than 10 million pounds (4.5 million kilograms) of paraquat were used annually in the United States, with the heaviest concentrations in the South, Midwest, and Californiaregions that feed much of the country and the world.
Despite its widespread use, dozens of countries have moved to ban paraquat outright, often under pressure from environmental and labor groups. The European Union and the United Kingdom prohibited the chemical in 2007, while China banned domestic use in 2017, followed by Vietnam and Malaysia, and Thailand implemented a similar ban in 2019.
Defenders of paraquat argue that the chemicals properties make it both effective and relatively contained in the environment. They note that paraquat is rapidly absorbed by weeds and, if rain falls even 30 minutes after application, it does not wash off into the soil, and companies such as Syngenta maintain that the herbicide becomes immobilized once it contacts the ground.
Yet the Parkinsons community and allied activists insist that people living near areas where paraquat is applied face an elevated risk of developing the disease. Whether paraquat actually causes Parkinsons has been the subject of intense scientific debate and study for years, with no universally accepted conclusion.
Dr. Philip Landrigan, an epidemiologist who directs a global health program at Boston College and has long campaigned against human exposure to toxic chemicals, said multiple studies indicate that environmental factors, including pesticides such as paraquat, can increase the risk of Parkinsons disease. His position reflects a growing movement in public health that favors aggressive restrictions on chemicals even when the evidence remains contested.
For Parkinsons advocates, Vermonts action is a milestone they hope will set a precedent. The ban is being framed as a major victory in a broader campaign to link certain agricultural chemicals to chronic neurological conditions and to push policymakers toward more sweeping environmental regulation.
No matter how you slice and dice it, theres no safe way to use paraquat, said Ron McConnell, a Vermonter diagnosed with Parkinsons after exposure to a different toxic substance at work in 2017. This law that Vermont just passed really is protecting the farmers that use it and the farmworkers that use it.
The statute takes effect on November 1, but lawmakers built in a lengthy transition period for certain specialty crops. Farmers using paraquat on fruit-producing orchards, berries, and small fruit crops will have until 2030 to phase out the herbicide and adopt alternative methods.
For growers like Greg Burtt, a Republican state legislator and owner of a family apple orchard, the ban is not a triumph but a threat to his livelihood. He describes paraquat as a critical tool in his operation, one that helps keep costs manageable and fields productive in a highly competitive marketplace.
Burtt argues that the prohibition will put Vermont farmers at a disadvantage compared with growers in other states who can continue using the more budget-friendly herbicide. While alternative chemicals exist, some carry their own risks, including the possibility of killing the crop itself if not applied with extreme care, and non-chemical options such as mechanical tilling, crop rotation, and hand weeding bring higher labor costs and operational challenges.
Theres a reason why its an industry standard, said Burtt, who has used paraquat for 20 years. From his perspective, policymakers are ignoring the practical realities of farming in favor of symbolic gestures that play well with activists but leave producers to absorb the consequences.
He also remains unconvinced that paraquat poses the dire personal risk claimed by its critics, saying he finds the research inconclusive. I wanna be the first person to make sure that its safe because I dont wanna die young over farming, Burtt said. And so if anybodys had to wrestle with these questions, its me.
As Vermont moves ahead with its ban, the broader national debate over paraquat and similar chemicals is likely to intensify, especially if federal regulators ultimately decline to follow the states lead. The outcome will test whether precautionary bans driven by activist pressure and contested science will override the concerns of farmers, consumers, and those who believe that sound policy should rest on clear, conclusive evidence rather than fear and political fashion.
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