2023 Montana Code Annotated › Title 80. Agriculture › Chapter 8. Pesticides › Part 1. General Administration › 80-8-102. Definitions

80-8-102. Definitions.
Unless the context requires otherwise, in this chapter, the following definitions apply:
(1) "Active ingredient" means:
(a) in the case of a pesticide, other than a plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant, an ingredient that will prevent, destroy, repel, alter life processes, or mitigate insects, nematodes, fungi, rodents, weeds, or other pests;
(b) in the case of a plant regulator, an ingredient that acts upon the physiology to accelerate or retard the rate of growth or rate of maturation or otherwise alter the normal processes of ornamental or crop plants or their produce;
(c) in the case of a defoliant, an ingredient that will cause the leaves or foliage to drop from a plant;
(d) in the case of a desiccant, an ingredient that will artificially accelerate the drying of plant tissue.
(2) "Adulterated" applies to a pesticide if its strength of purity falls below the professed standard or quality as expressed on labeling or under which it is sold, if any substance has been substituted wholly or in part for the pesticide, or if any valuable constituent of the pesticide has been wholly or in part abstracted.
(3) "Applicator" means a person who applies pesticides by any method.
(4) "Beneficial insects" means those insects that, in the course of their life cycle, carry, transmit, or spread pollen to and from vegetation, act as parasites and predators on other insects, or are otherwise beneficial.
(5) "Commercial applicator" means a person who by contract or for hire applies by aerial, ground, or hand equipment pesticides to land, plants, seed, animals, waters, structures, or vehicles.
(6) "Commercial operator" means a person who applies pesticides under the supervision of a commercial applicator.
(7) "Crop" means a food intended for human or animal consumption or a fiber product.
(8) "Dealer" means a person who sells, wholesales, offers or exposes for sale, exchanges, barters, or gives away within this state any pesticide except those pesticides that are to be used for home, yard, lawn, and garden.
(9) "Defoliant" means a substance or mixture of substances for causing the leaves or foliage to drop from a plant, with or without causing abscission.
(10) "Desiccant" means a substance or mixture of substances for artificially accelerating the drying of plant tissue.
(11) (a) "Device" means any instrument or contrivance intended for destroying, controlling, repelling, or mitigating pests.
(b) The term does not include equipment used for the application of pesticides.
(12) "Environment" means the soil, air, water, plants, and animals.
(13) "Equipment" means equipment used in the actual application of pesticides, including aircraft, ground sprayers and dusters, hand-held applicators, and water surface equipment.
(14) "Farm applicator" means a person applying pesticides to the person's own crops or land.
(15) "Fungi" means all nonchlorophyll-bearing thallophytes (all nonchlorophyll-bearing plants of a lower order than mosses and liverworts), such as rusts, smuts, mildews, molds, and yeasts, except those resident on or in living humans or other animals.
(16) "Herbicide" means a substance or mixture of substances for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any weed.
(17) "Inert ingredient" means an ingredient that is not an active ingredient.
(18) "Ingredient statement" means either:
(a) a statement of the chemical name and common name and percentage of each active ingredient, together with the total percentage of the inert ingredients, in the pesticide; or
(b) a statement of the chemical name and common name of each active ingredient, together with the name of each and total percentage of the inert ingredients, if any, in the pesticide. However, subsection (18)(a) applies if the preparation is highly toxic to humans, determined as provided in 80-8-105. If the pesticide contains arsenic in any form, the ingredient statement must also include a statement of the percentage of total and water-soluble arsenic, each calculated as elemental arsenic.
(19) "Insect" means any of the numerous small invertebrate animals generally having the body more or less obviously segmented, for the most part belonging to the class insecta, comprising six-legged, winged and wingless forms, such as beetles, bugs, wasps, flies, and keds, and to other classes of arthropods whose members are wingless and usually have more than six legs, such as spiders, mites, ticks, centipedes, and wood lice.
(20) "Insecticide" means any substance or mixture of substances for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any insects present in any environment.
(21) "Label" means the written, printed, or graphic matter on or attached to the pesticide or device or to its immediate container and any outside container or wrapper of any retail package of the pesticide or device.
(22) "Labeling" means all labels and other written, printed, or graphic matter:
(a) on the pesticide or device or any of its containers or wrappers;
(b) accompanying the pesticide or device at any time;
(c) to which reference is made on the label or in literature accompanying the pesticide or device, except when accurate, nonmisleading reference is made to current official publications of:
(i) the United States environmental protection agency;
(ii) federal departments of agriculture, interior, or health and human services;
(iii) state experiment stations;
(iv) state agricultural colleges; or
(v) other similar federal institutions or official agencies of this state or other states authorized by law to conduct research in the field of pesticides.
(23) "Misbranded" applies:
(a) to a pesticide or device if its labeling bears any statement, design, or graphic representation relative to its ingredients that is false or misleading;
(b) to a pesticide if:
(i) it is an imitation of or is offered for sale under the name of another pesticide;
(ii) its labeling fails to bear the necessary information required by this chapter;
(iii) the labeling accompanying it does not contain instructions for use that when followed provide adequate public protection;
(iv) the label does not contain a warning or caution statement necessary and, if complied with, adequate to prevent injury to living humans or undue hazard to the environment;
(v) the label of the retail package that is presented or displayed under customary conditions of purchase does not bear an ingredient statement on that part of the immediate container and on the outside or on a wrapper through which the ingredient statement on the immediate container cannot be clearly read;
(vi) any word, statement, or other information required to appear on the labeling is not prominently placed on the labeling with a conspicuousness (as compared with other words, statements, designs, or graphic matter in the labeling) and in terms rendering it likely to be read and understood by the ordinary individual under customary conditions of purchase and use;
(vii) in the case of an insecticide, nematicide, fungicide, or herbicide, when used as directed or in accordance with commonly recognized practice, it is injurious to living humans or other vertebrate animals or vegetation, except weeds, to which it is applied or to the person applying the pesticide;
(viii) in the case of a plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant, when used as directed, it is injurious to humans or other vertebrate animals or vegetation to which it is applied or to the person applying the pesticide. Physical or physiological effects on plants or parts of plants are not injurious when this is the purpose for which the plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant is applied in accordance with the label claims and recommendations.
(24) "Person" means any natural person, individual, firm, partnership, association, corporation, company, joint-stock association, body politic, or organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, and any trustee, receiver, assignee, or similar representative.
(25) "Pest" includes any insect, rodent, nematode, snail, slug, or weed and any form of plant or animal life or virus, except a virus on or in living humans or other animals, that is normally considered a pest or that the department declares a pest.
(26) "Pesticide" means any:
(a) substance or mixture of substances, including any living organism or any product derived from a living organism, intended for preventing, destroying, controlling, repelling, altering life processes, or mitigating any insects, rodents, nematodes, fungi, weeds, and other forms of plant or animal life or viruses, except viruses on or in living humans or other animals, that may infect or be detrimental to persons, vegetation, crops, animals, structures, or households or be present in any environment or that the department declares a pest;
(b) substance or mixture of substances intended for use as a plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant; and
(c) other substances intended for that use named by the department by rule.
(27) (a) "Plant regulator" means any substance or mixture of substances affecting the rate of growth or rate of maturation or for otherwise altering physiological condition of plants.
(b) The term does not include substances to the extent that they are intended as plant nutrients, trace elements, nutritional chemicals, plant inoculants, and soil amendments.
(28) "Public utility applicator" means a person applying pesticides to land and structures owned or leased by a public utility.
(29) "Registrant" means the person registering any pesticide or device under the provisions of this chapter.
(30) "Restricted-use pesticide" means any pesticide, including highly toxic pesticides, that the department or the environmental protection agency has found and determined to be injurious, when used in accordance with registration, label, directions, and cautions, to persons, beneficial insects, animals, crops, or the environment other than the pests it is intended to prevent, destroy, control, or mitigate.
(31) "Retailer" means a person who sells, offers or exposes for sale, exchanges, barters, or gives away within this state any pesticide for home, yard, lawn, and garden use in quantities or concentrations as determined by the department.
(32) "Waste pesticide" means a pesticide that:
(a) may not be used legally because the environmental protection agency or the department has canceled or suspended the pesticide's registration or has taken other administrative action to prohibit use of the pesticide;
(b) will not be used for reasons including but not limited to product damage, toxicity, or obsolescence; or
(c) cannot be disposed of in a legal or economically feasible manner.
(33) "Weed" means any plant or part of the plant that grows where it is not wanted.
History: En. Sec. 4, Ch. 403, L. 1971; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 447, L. 1973; amd. Sec. 120, Ch. 218, L. 1974; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 462, L. 1977; R.C.M. 1947, 27-216; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 51, L. 1991; amd. Sec. 78, Ch. 10, L. 1993; amd. Sec. 2597, Ch. 56, L. 2009; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 244, L. 2017; amd. Sec. 36, Ch. 3, L. 2019.