Use the sample below as a starting point. We encourage you to personalize it with your own experience as a beekeeper, farmer, gardener, consumer, or community member.  Copy any or all of the text, then paste here, and submit your comment.  The full details for this may be found here: https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2026-3862-0001

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I support EPA’s investment in practical alternatives to conventional pesticide use, and I urge the Agency to make regenerative agriculture and Integrated Pest Management central to this Innovation Challenge. Farmers need effective, affordable tools to produce the food our nation depends on, but agricultural productivity and heavy reliance on pesticides do not have to go hand in hand. Research has found that pesticide use can be substantially reduced on many farms without sacrificing productivity or profitability, while threshold-based pest management can significantly reduce insecticide use without compromising crop yields.

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EPA should look beyond simply replacing one chemical with another. Please invest in whole-system solutions that build healthy soils, increase biodiversity, protect pollinators and other beneficial insects, and give farmers the research, technical assistance, and financial support needed to adopt successful alternatives. Regenerative agriculture is a promising area, but considerably more independent, long-term research and education. is needed to understand which practices work best across different crops, regions, and farming systems. That research gap is exactly why EPA should invest in this work. EPA should also fund education, outreach, and farmer-to-farmer learning so that proven alternatives do not remain in research reports, but can be understood, adapted, and successfully implemented on working farms.

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A resilient food system should produce abundant, nutritious, affordable food while protecting the farmers, farmworkers, pollinators, communities, and natural resources on which agriculture depends. I urge EPA to use this Innovation Challenge to demonstrate that reducing pesticide dependence and supporting successful American farms are not competing goals—they are essential parts of the same future.