{"id":28399,"date":"2020-12-18T01:20:34","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T05:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=28399"},"modified":"2020-12-18T01:21:48","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T05:21:48","slug":"investigation-on-weed-killer-dicamba-adds-to-pattern-of-corporate-deception-on-pesticide-hazards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2020\/12\/investigation-on-weed-killer-dicamba-adds-to-pattern-of-corporate-deception-on-pesticide-hazards\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigation on Weed Killer Dicamba Adds to Pattern of Corporate Deception on Pesticide Hazards"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, December 18, 2020)\u00a0The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting<\/em> published a story<\/a> in early December on yet another example of the corporate malfeasance that exalts profit far above concerns for safety, health, and ecosystems. The Midwest Center\u2019<\/em>s investigation finds that Monsanto and BASF, makers of the extremely problematic herbicide dicamba<\/a>, engaged in a variety of deceitful, unethical, and possibly fraudulent practices to enable its use. The bottom line is that the companies knew, before they released dicamba, about the massive damage it would cause \u2014 and then put it on the market. Beyond Pesticides has reported on the corporate greed that fuels the downstream public health, environmental, and economic devastation these pesticides cause, and advocated for their removal from the market.<\/p>\r\n

Such unscrupulous behavior is not confined to these companies; Bayer (which now owns Monsanto) and Syngenta are also implicated in similar actions related to other pesticides: glyphosate<\/a> and atrazine<\/a>, respectively. Over the course of the past couple of decades, large agrochemical corporations have pursued not only extreme market penetration for their toxic products, but also, vertical integration that, in the case of Bayer\/Monsanto, \u201crepresents a near-monopoly on the agriculture supply chain<\/a>.\u201d Corporate ownership of the patent on genetically engineered (GE) seeds \u2014 which work only when paired with pesticides the company manufactures \u2014 not only suppresses competition, but also, with enough market share, essentially imposes near-complete reliance by farmers on one company\u2019s products. Many experts and advocates regard this as a serious threat to global food supply, health, biodiversity, and the environment.<\/p>\r\n

When EPA fails to enact its mission to protect health and the environment by allowing use of pesticides that result in harms, the agrochemical landscape gets even uglier; a bit of review of the dicamba saga will be helpful. Dicamba<\/a>\u00a0is a particularly problematic herbicide, given its\u00a0propensity to drift<\/a>, the widespread\u00a0damage it causes to non-target flora<\/a>, and industry\u2019s intensive marketing of various product iterations. Added to that list are its impacts on human health: carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity, hepatic and renal damage, and developmental effects, among others. Further, it is toxic to birds, fish, and other aquatic organisms, which is especially relevant where it shows up in groundwater, as it tends to in the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\r\n

The herbicide was used for decades on its own to control weeds on cropland. The \u201cmodern\u201d dicamba debacle began in 2016 when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved Monsanto\u2019s dicamba \u201cstrategy\u201d for cotton and soybeans: the dicamba formulation Xtendimax<\/a> for use with seeds genetically engineered to be dicamba tolerant. Once deployed, because of the herbicide\u2019s strong tendency to drift<\/a> for significant distances, its use resulted in<\/a> \u201cmillions of acres of crop damage across the Midwest and South;\u00a0widespread tree death<\/a>\u00a0in many rural communities, state parks and nature preserves; and\u00a0an unprecedented level of strife<\/a>\u00a0in the farming world.\u201d As reports of this extreme damage<\/a> began to roll in, states began to scramble<\/a> to regulate dicamba\u2019s use, absent federal efforts, to try to curb some of the devastation.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cHoldout\u201d farmers, including organic growers, who have rejected the use of the GE-seed-plus-herbicide scheme, have been particularly vulnerable to the ravages of dicamba drift. Their complaints to neighboring farmers, whose dicamba use has compromised yield, destroyed crops, or rendered them no longer organic, are often met with indifference or anger. (As mentioned above, dicamba use is a factor in increasing tensions<\/a> in some rural communities.) These farmers are faced, as the Midwest Center<\/em> writes<\/a>, with the choice to \u201cget poisoned or get on board\u201d the (GE-seed-plus-herbicide) train.<\/p>\r\n

Notably, as Beyond Pesticides reported in early 2020<\/a>, a Missouri peach farmer that sued Bayer and BASF for damage to his trees won $265 million in compensation for the companies\u2019 \u201cnegligence in the design of their dicamba herbicides, and failure to warn farmers about the dangers of their products. . . . The jury determined that the joint venture between the two companies amounted to a conspiracy to create an \u2018ecological disaster\u2019 in the name of profit.\u201d An attorney for the plaintiff in that case, Billy Randles, commented<\/a>, \u201cThis is the first product in American history that literally destroys the competition. . . . You buy it or else.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

These realities demonstrate the perverse elegance of strategic corporate \u201cverticality-plus-penetration.\u201d Pesticide manufacturers control supply chains, functionally force farmers into intense reliance on their products, and then use other farmers as leverage on those who resist to get them to \u201cget with the program.\u201d Monsanto has been notorious for bankrupting small farmers<\/a> who have dared to say \u201cno\u201d to its near-hegemony by, for example, saving seeds<\/a> to plant in the following season, thus opting out of purchasing the company\u2019s GE seeds.<\/p>\r\n

This Midwest Center<\/em> reporting shows that executives at Monsanto, knowing full-well the potential damage of their dicamba\/GE seed system, proceeded. The story reveals<\/a> that Monsanto:
\r\n\u2022 released and marketed its dicamba products \u201cknowing that dicamba would cause widespread damage to soybean and cotton crops that weren\u2019t resistant to dicamba. They used \u2018protection from your neighbors\u2019 [messaging] as a way to sell more of their products. In doing so, the companies ignored years of warnings from independent academics, specialty crop growers and their own employees.\u201d
\r\n\u2022 limited any testing that could have delayed or denied EPA approval of dicamba; \u201cFor years, Monsanto struggled to keep dicamba from drifting in its own tests. In regulatory tests submitted to the EPA, the company sprayed the product in locations and under weather conditions that did not mirror how farmers would actually spray it. Midway through the approval process, with the EPA paying close attention, the company decided to stop its researchers from conducting tests.\u201d<\/p>\r\n