UNITED STATES
INSIGHTS
National Agricultural Aviation Association
The Essential Nature of Aerial Application and NAAA By Andrew Moore, CEO, National Agricultural Aviation Association
Aerial application has been, is and will continue to be essential.
This industry being deemed essential by the federal government is not a unique occurrence.
B 2 | agairupdate.com
The latest historically significant example of this stems from March 19, 2020, when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce” identified those providing agricultural inputs as an economic sector with essential workers critical to public health and safety, as well as to economic and national security. The guidance went on to state that permitting these functions to continue during periods of community restriction, access management, social distancing or closure orders is crucial to the continuity of essential functions— like the food supply. Aerial applicators and crew didn’t skip a beat and continued to treat nearly a third of the nation’s cropland during the 2020 U.S. COVID-19 outbreak. This industry being deemed essential by the federal government is not a unique occurrence. Perhaps most memorably, think back to 2001 and the tragedy of 9/11. The U.S. government shut down the airspace throughout the country after hijackers crashed airliners into the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and an open field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Aerial application was the first sector of general aviation back in the air on Sept. 14, 2001, due to the essential service ag aviators were providing to defoliate cotton, protect potatoes from fungi, and combat wildfires and disease-carrying mosquitoes that late
summer. Two more times the airspace was shut down to aerial applicators shortly thereafter due to intelligence uncovered showing the terrorists possessed information on ag aviation, but the essential service they provide, coupled with determining there was no security risk, resulted in those additional ground stops being lifted within 48 hours or less.
The National Agricultural Aviation Association (NAAA) was the conductor that orchestrated the government into action in these and a plethora of other cases. All of this didn’t occur in a vacuum. The National Agricultural Aviation Association (NAAA) was the conductor that orchestrated the government into action in these and a plethora of other cases. Almost immediately after state quarantines began being issued nationally this past March, NAAA was in direct communication with officials from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), ➤
