Congrats to 25 Years of RISE

Chris Beytes

Happy 25th to one of the important industry associations that you may not be aware of: RISE—the Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment. Members are the formulators, manufacturers and distributors of specialty fertilizers and pesticides, and they work hard with RISE’s professional staff to make sure the products you need remain available to you. You know how vocal the activists are who want to ban all chemicals? Well, it’s RISE (along with other groups like SAF and AmericanHort, of course) who fight for science to prevail.

GrowerTalks was on a conference call last week with RISE President Aaron Hobbs, and during the Q&A section we asked him what, if anything, RISE had learned in dealing with the recent (and ongoing) pollinators/neonics issue. RISE and the other groups have successfully fought to prevent state and national bans on neonics before much more research is conducted.

“[That] there is no issue too big, or looks too scary, that we can’t impact,” Aaron replied.

So congrats to RISE for 25 years of looking out for growers and retailers! GT