Posted July 31, 2015
Before pesticides go from the laboratory to the farm field, they have to first be vetted by the Environmental Protection Agency. But they’re commonly mixed—sometimes by the pesticide manufacturers, sometimes by the farmers themselves—with substances called adjuvants that boost their effectiveness (to spread more evenly on a plant’s leaf in the case of insecticides, or to penetrate a plant’s outer layer, allowing herbicides to effectively kill weeds). Despite their ubiquity, adjuvants aren’t vetted by the EPA at all; they’re considered “inert” ingredients. Read more.