By Paul Schlagel

As a Coloradan and fourth-generation sugar beet farmer, my relationship with the land and my livelihood depend on balancing healthy soil, vibrant crops, and clean water. Achieving this balance — and providing food to my neighbors here in Longmont — requires essential tools such as scientifically researched and tested pesticides. That’s why I’m concerned about Colorado Senate Bill 26-065, which would sharply restrict the sale and use of neonicotinoid-treated seeds across our state.

When I see calls at the Capitol to restrict these tools I don’t just see a policy debate; I see a sweeping proposal that risks ignoring the complexities of Colorado’s environmental and agricultural landscape.

While we ought to do everything we can to protect Colorado’s beautiful rivers and lakes, our state’s environmental policies must be rooted in sound science. The facts show that modern seed treatments are a targeted, low-impact tool for farmers, not a driver of water contamination.

In fact, monitoring data from across Colorado show neonic detections are more often tied to urban hotspots like Denver’s Cherry Creek than rural fields. Samplings in the heart of Colorado’s farming communities such as the Republican Basin and the San Luis Valley show nearly a 0% detection rate. If agriculture were the culprit, these basins would be the first to show it.

Part of the confusion around these tools stems from how they’re described. We aren’t spraying chemicals across the landscape. Seed treatments are applied in small, precise amounts directly to seeds before they ever touch the dirt. This allows farmers to use significantly lower amounts of pesticides than traditional spraying, keeping the pest protection where it’s needed and saving us both time and money.

Because Colorado is a semi-arid state, farmers also manage water carefully. Many of us use pivot irrigation systems matched to plant needs, resulting in zero irrigation runoff. We aren’t just farmers; we are water and tech managers who have every incentive to keep our water in the field and out of local waterways.

The risks of restricting these tools under SB 65 are significant. If farmers lose access to treated seeds, we are forced toward more costly and less effective alternatives. These outdated methods often require more intensive management, increasing the environmental footprint critics claim they want to reduce.

For specialty crops like lettuce and sugarbeets, the stakes are even higher. Restricting access to modern crop protection tools can increase the risk of significant drops in crop revenue by 58% to 72% thanks to steep yield losses. Such a blow would decimate Colorado agriculture.

It’s important to remember that we aren’t operating in a “Wild West” where farmers can use untested pesticides at will. The EPA’s pesticide review process is among the most transparent and rigorous in the world, requiring a decade-plus of scientific vetting before a product is registered for use by farmers. State-level restrictions without a complete picture risk doing more harm than good.

Furthermore, today’s pollutant monitoring tools are so sensitive they can identify substances at parts per trillion, far below levels that cause biological harm. This level of detection is equivalent to finding one drop of water in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools, not an indicator of a crisis in our rural communities.

As lawmakers debate Senate Bill 65, we must resist the urge to react to non-peer-reviewed reports that prioritize headlines over actual science and Colorado’s communities. We can protect our waterways without undermining the farmers who help feed this state, but only if policy is grounded in the dirt and the data.

Paul Schlagel is a fourth-generation farmer whose family has farmed the same land for 100 years. He lives in Longmont.