The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has heard from the parties in a suit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to allow more widespread applications of dicamba. In 2016, the EPA approved dicamba for a conditional two-year registration. The agency allowed the more widespread use of dicamba, previously considered a volatile herbicide, as long as incidents of the pesticide harming other crops “are not occurring at unacceptable frequencies or levels.” In 2018, despite more than 4,200 official complaints that alleged damage to at least …
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Millions for Peaches: Peach Farmers Awarded $265 Million in Dicamba Lawsuit
A southeast Missouri jury has awarded a peach farm $265 million in damages after a three-week trial in federal court. The lawsuit, filed by Bader Farms, alleged Monsanto and BASF are to blame for extensive damage to its peach farm because their dicamba-based herbicides drifted onto its orchards from neighboring fields.
Bader Farms’ attorney argued that the companies created a joint venture, and “conspired to create an ecological disaster” to increase profits on dicamba-tolerant seeds. Monsanto and BASF denied those allegations and claimed that the …
Continue ReadingDi-can’t-a Part 3: Revenge of the Dicamba
Last year, we noted the commencement of several class action lawsuits involving dicamba, a widely-used herbicide that has come under fire recently based on allegations that its use has resulted in collateral damage to crops and other plant life on neighboring properties that have not been genetically modified to resist dicamba.
Dicamba Updates
Yesterday, Monsanto Co. and BASF Corp. asked a Missouri federal judge to toss a proposed class action by farmers alleging the companies purposely distributed dicamba and withheld information about its harmful …
Continue ReadingDi-can’t-a Part 2: Enter the Plaintiff’s Bar
In July, the Environmental Law Monitor reported on regulatory responses to the herbicide dicamba from Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri.
Dicamba has been a hot button topic in the farming/agricultural world, which often finds itself at the busy intersection of environmental and toxic tort issues. As many of you know, dicamba is an herbicide that’s been in use for decades, but in the past couple of years suppliers have designed certain types of crops that are genetically modified to tolerate having the chemical sprayed on them. …
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