As suspected drift from dicamba took a toll on farmers the past two growing seasons, Monsanto … publicly urged growers not to spray illegal kinds of the product while new formulations supposedly less prone to drift waited for regulatory approval.
But a class-action lawsuit filed … in federal court in St. Louis accuses company sales representatives of secretly giving farmers assurances that using unauthorized or “off-label” spray varieties would be all right.
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Monsanto, BASF, DuPont and Pioneer are the agribusiness and chemical companies associated with the herbicide named as defendants in the case. Plaintiffs include seven Arkansas farms affected by alleged dicamba drift [in 2017], though more may be added….
Monsanto first released dicamba-tolerant cotton in 2015 and brought resistant soybeans to market the following year. Corresponding herbicides produced by the defendants weren’t available for either growing season, only gaining approval since late 2016. Their absence led many growers with dicamba-tolerant seeds to allegedly turn to more drift-prone — or volatile — forms of the herbicide, leaving their fields unharmed but putting nearby growers with nonresistant crops at risk.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Class lawsuit takes aim at dicamba producers, accuses Monsanto reps of condoning illegal spraying
