A coalition of public health, conservation, and farmworker advocacy groups has filed a petition urging the Environmental Protection Agency to ban several pesticide ingredients used in U.S. fruit and vegetable production. The petition targets antimicrobial pesticides linked to resistance risks in human and veterinary medicine.
Filed by the Center for Biological Diversity on behalf of nine groups, the request asks the EPA to ban pesticide use of oxytetracycline and streptomycin, two antibiotics widely used in orchards. Both are applied to control bacterial diseases in crops such as citrus and apples, and are also classified by the World Health Organization as important for human health.
The petition also includes gentamicin, kasugamycin, ipflufenoquin, and triazole fungicides, several of which are related to antibiotic or antifungal classes used in medical treatment. The petition states that "research is clear that the use of antibiotics and antifungals as pesticides poses a threat to public health because it contributes to the evolution of pathogens that are resistant to medicine."
Groups submitting the petition argue that antimicrobial exposure in the environment can affect soil, water quality, and wildlife, in addition to human health concerns.
Antibiotic sprays widely used in U.S. fruit production
Oxytetracycline and streptomycin are used in more than 50 EPA-registered pesticide products and have been applied in both citrus and pome fruit production. The EPA first approved emergency use of oxytetracycline on Florida citrus in 2016 to manage citrus greening disease. Use was later expanded in 2018 to citrus areas in Florida and California, totalling roughly 700,000 acres.
Streptomycin was also authorised for spraying in 2018. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that more than 125,000 pounds of oxytetracycline and streptomycin were applied to crops in 2018. Smaller quantities are used in apple orchards to manage diseases such as fire blight.
In 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated the EPA's approval of streptomycin for use on citrus crops, finding the agency had not met requirements under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Endangered Species Act. Oxytetracycline use on citrus remains allowed.
According to petitioners, spraying low concentrations of antibiotics across large acreages may select for resistant bacteria in orchard soils and on fruit surfaces, with the potential for resistance to spread beyond production sites. Prior findings submitted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2017 indicated that pesticide use of these antibiotics could select for resistant environmental bacteria.
Nathan Donley of the Center for Biological Diversity said the petition process may take time and that further legal action could follow if the EPA declines to respond.
"We're kind of playing the long game here," he said.
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