Farmers have been warning that a ban on atrazine would seriously hurt the farm economy, and a new study by a University of Chicago economist indicates the economic impact could be even worse than anticipated. Banning the herbicide would cost between 21,000 and 48,000 jobs from corn production losses alone. That isn’t even taking into account the likely job losses in the sorghum and sugar cane sectors.

The huge projected job losses are based on a study by Professor Don L. Coursey, who estimates a national ban on atrazine would cost corn farmers between $26 and $58 per acre – or $2.3 billion to $5 billion a year. Banning the herbicide, he says, could be ‘devastating’ for the U.S. corn economy – driving unemployment up from 12 percent to 14.6 percent, with over 90  percent of the impact felt by small family farms. And corn farmers would be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Either using a traditional herbicide or shifting to a genetically modified organism would result in lower yields.

Farmers might understand the rationale for the current unscheduled review if atrazine had not been so thoroughly examined. The EPA re-registered atrazine in 2006 based on nearly 6,000 studies. Now it appears the Agency may have become a loaded jury. In June, Deputy Associate Administrator Robert Verchick said the EPA “is going to reach its conclusions and then subject them to independent peer review in September." This, despite the fact EPA hasn’t completed all of the scientific review it has planned for 2010 and 2011.

Atrazine has passed test after test. And it has made corn farmers more efficient and prosperous. It is time to recognize its benefits – and the cost to the farming community if it were no longer available.

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