Since 2017, farmers have sprayed an increasing amount of the weed killer, called dicamba, on soybean and cotton crops genetically engineered by agribusiness company Monsanto to withstand being sprayed by the herbicide. But each year, dicamba has drifted off-target and damaged millions of acres of non-resistant soybeans, specialty crops and other plants.
On July 28, 2017, a central Iowa emergency dispatcher received a 911 call from a man in a corn field.
Row-crop farmers in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Arkansas overwhelmingly now use dicamba, realizing it’s their best chance to protect against damage. But specialty-crop farmers are still at risk, and feel they are running out of options on how to fight back.
Pesticides are all over, from backyard gardens to cornfields. While their use doesn’t appear to be slowing, concern over drift and the resulting effects on health is driving research — and more worries. Those concerns are bringing pesticides to a different venue: courtrooms.
Farmers in a federal class-action lawsuit filed two main complaints this week against agro-chemical giants Monsanto and BASF regarding the herbicide dicamba, which is blamed for millions of acres of crop damage, especially to soybeans, over the last couple years.
