The dramatic plot twists keep coming. One farmer gunned down another in a confrontation over his withered crops. Then, states began to restrict the use of dicamba, with Arkansas completely banning it last summer. Monsanto wasn't happy about that. In the latest development, the agribusiness company sued the Arkansas State Plant Board, which regulates pesticides. It also sued each of the individual board members -- who, for the record, are just local, agriculture-minded folks who volunteer their time. One board member, Terry Fuller, told NPR's Dan Charles: "I didn't feel like I was leading the charge. I felt like I was just trying to do my duty."
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From Modern Farmer: EPA-Approved Dicamba Is an Airborne Menace and Some States Are Banning It
see also ernfarmer.com/2017/07/dicamba-drift/
By Dan Nosowitz on July 11, 2017
Dicamba is not a new herbicide that selectively kills broad-leafed weeds, and has been used as a pre-emergent (meaning applied to the soil prior to planting to kill weeds). Just last year (2016) genetically-modified dicamba-resistant soy and cotton seeds hit the market under the Monsanto brand name Xtend. Those seeds came with a huge caveat, in that farmers weren't legally allowed to spray dicamba on their fields. That's because dicamba is highly volatile (meaning that it's easily airborne and susceptible to drift, hence these issues); it was only in November of 2016 that a (supposedly) less-volatile version was approved for spraying in 2017. Despite warnings not to, farmers began spraying dicamba on Xtend fields last season; this season's new, EPA-approved dicamba isn't as drift-resistant as thought. If dicamba lands on a field that isn't planted with Monsanto's dicamba-resistant crops, the impact is devastating. Non-resistant soybeans suffer from puckered leaves, buckled pods, and stunted growth. Farms from Arkansas to North Carolina have been hit, millions of acres affected. Monsanto has been sued over this; the lawsuits are ongoing.What can farmers affected by dicamba drift do? There are reports that federal crop insurance won't cover damage from dicamba drift, as the crop insurance only covers natural disasters like floods and fire. Theoretically, affected famers could rip out their crops and plant Monsanto's dicamba-resistant seed, but forcing farmers to lock into the products of a company due to damage inflicted by that company seems pretty ridiculous.
What does Monsanto have to say?
Monsanto's "North American Crop Protection Systems Lead," Ty Witten claimed that dicamba is getting unfairly blamed: "Other herbicides can mask themselves or be assumed it was dicamba but it really wasn't," repeating Monsanto's claim that growers are applying the pesticide incorrectly, offering a meandering anecdote about a farmer who had left a residue of another chemical in his spraying applicator which affected the volatility of the dicamba, and another about a farmer who had to use colored smoke bombs to gauge the wind at every given moment. "The beautiful and difficult thing about biology is things happen." When asked what he recommends for those who have been drifted on and suffered damage, he appeared to either not understand or ignore the question, instead addressing only the customers who have been spraying dicamba.
Can't the government do anything about this?
The Arkansas State Plant Board's emergency ban on dicamba was approved by the governor on June 30. On July 7th, Arkansas and Missouri both issued temporary bans on the use and sale of dicamba. "I hope folks will continue to not make a knee-jerk reaction, to get real data and information before you make an action change to confirm or disprove that applications techniques were followed or that the correct purchase of herbicide was used definitively," said Witten in that same interview.
Reuters called the dicamba roll-out "Monsanto's largest-ever technology launch." It became its largest fiasco!
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Maps Show How Much Farmland Has Been Damaged by Dicamba Drift
By Dan Nosowitz, November 1, 2017
see also: click here
Dicamba causes a telltale cupping of leaves on soybean plants that aren't immune to it. It is not hyperbole to call dicamba the most controversial agrochemical product launch of the past decade. As is unavoidable with a story that's so rapidly changing--dicamba is banned! Dicamba is restricted! Dicamba led to an actual murder!--it can be hard to get a sense of the full picture. Kevin Bradley at the University of Missouri has been tracking dicamba closely, and put together two maps that show in a nice, broad sense the impact of dicamba: how many acres of farmland have been affected, and how many complaints have been lodged?Evidence Mounts That Monsanto's Dicamba Is Killing Trees, Too
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