By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter
Cotton and soybean farmers who use dicamba to control weeds will have to follow a few new restrictions in the coming crop year.
Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced an agreement with BASF, DowDuPont and Monsanto to voluntarily add additional requirements for “over the top” use on dicamba product labels.
The restrictions, according to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, allow farmers to use dicamba, while also minimizing the potential for drift damage to nearby crops.
“(These) actions are the result of intensive, collaborative efforts, working side-by-side with the states and university scientists from across the nation who have first-hand knowledge of the problem and workable solutions,” Pruitt said. “Our collective efforts with our state partners ensure we are relying on the best, on-the-ground information.”
Additional requirements for dicamba use on growing plants now include:
1. Classifying products as “restricted use,” permitting only certified applicators with special training and those under their supervision, to apply them; dicamba specific training for all certified applicators to reinforce proper use
2. Requiring farmers to maintain specific records regarding the use of these products to improve compliance with label restrictions
3. Limiting applications to when maximum wind speeds are below 10 mph (from 15 mph) to reduce potential spray drift
4. Reducing the times during the day when applications can occur
5. Including tank clean-out language to prevent cross contamination
6. Enhancing susceptible crop language and record keeping with sensitive crop registries to increase awareness of risk to especially sensitive crops nearby.
To arrive at the above restrictions, EPA worked with states, land grant universities and pesticide manufacturers. BASF, DowDuPont and Monsanto have reportedly agreed to make the necessary changes to products labels in time for the 2018 crop season.
“Based on the science behind our low-volatility dicamba product and learnings from the 2017 season, we are confident the required training and record keeping can address the main causes of off-target movement,” Monsanto’s Global Regulatory Lead Ty Vaughn said. “We want to stress how important it is that farmers use products approved by the EPA for use over the top of dicamba-tolerant crops, and use them in accordance with all label requirements.”
According to the EPA, it will continue to monitor these changes to “help inform our decision whether to allow the continued ‘over the top’ use of dicamba beyond the 2018 growing season.”
In late September, the Arkansas Plant Board moved to effectively ban dicamba use in the 2018 crop year due to complaints of alleged misuse and damage.
Similar complaints of alleged damage were reported in Missouri and Tennessee.
Dicamba is a broad spectrum herbicide.
Monsanto, BASF and DowDuPont are among agricultural manufacturers who use the herbicide in their products like Diablo, Banvel and Vanquish.
It’s also common in commercial and personal weed control products.Farmers and at-home users are encouraged to read and follow label directions when applying any herbicide or pesticide.
It’s literally sickening what pesticide producers are essentially injecting into our soil and feeding us as our primary sources of “nutrition” with some justifications only being feeble 3 month studies of rats to justify their greed-led destruction of agriculture.
When one State, or especially nations, completely ban a product, there should be ample cause to ban that product in all areas if it were not for the lobbyists, deceptive jargon, and corruption within our local and federal governments.
The patenting of seeds, Round-up ready seeds, and GMOs all set the consumer up to be completely ransacked by these same companies when there is a crisis and a shortage of food. Eventually… maybe when profits level out too much… the prices go up from their research gone wrong, their soil contamination, and overall self-imposed shortages. Yet, they still win rather than being held accountable to humanity. We don’t have to look far to see their strategic leaders in government and the Monsanto legislation that was passed to disavow anyone from filing lawsuits against Monsanto.
Monsanto’s buy-out of Bayer Pharmceuticals grows into an entirely demented investors dream as they can now begin profiting from potentially producing the cancer while becoming the “hero” with a “cure” that only mitigates the “cancer” while they “work so diligently” to “cure” the world of such a sad demise.
Rodale’s research shows that organic farming competes in-step with farmers who use pesticides but the truth rarely raises above fear and proganda in this generation… truth isn’t always profitable so all too many like to just bury it deep along with the masses who die at the expense of deception and greed.
Gerson Therapy and holistic methods have been thoroughly documented to cure cancer, leukemia, and a number of ailments. There’s no money in naturally occurring cures and remedies unless one could literally corner the agriculture market somehow. A company would have to do something like patent a good majority or our agriculture to do that though… think about that… you’d be surprised at how many seed patents are approved and pending currently… even varieties of eucalyptus trees. I challenge anyone to read 10 labels in the grocery store and find a product that isn’t a genetically modified organism, GMO. Our trust and good faith in some American products and companies has been undermined while we all blindly still thought that brand loyalty was a really great thing.
Well at least organic farmers are doing the right thing with the soil and air for our future generations. The only way their core character and concern for this and future generations could be corrupted is if they were forced out of business by big companies. That couldn’t happen unless the patented seeds somehow got planted close to organic crops and they “cross-contaminated” the crops. The companies who distribute the patented seeds then should be at fault for not barricading their science experiments within some set boundaries but the exact opposite is true.
Organic farmers are being sued for patent infringement and loosing their farms to big companies with lots of money to throw at lawyers, judges, and government officials.
We need to do something, at the least in Texas, before our nation ends up like third world countries where the those with good character can’t afford to feed their families or their community due to corrupt and greed-filled character poisoning our essential rights to being able to bring life and health to a world in need.
I’m sincerely hoping Texas can all the more set a precedent that shows the rest of the world that we will not allow greed and deception to overwhelm our tried-and-true hand-shake farming heritage of generosity and truth.
Joseph – thank you for a thought provoking post. A lot of what you’ve posted here has nothing to do with the dicamba issue but some call for a response. I have no idea, where the “three-month” claim for approval came from, but I assume you mean GMO technology. It takes, on average, about 13 years and $136 million to bring a GMO product to market.
There is no evidence, and by that I mean absolutely none, of GMOs causing cancer. In fact, there is research in the works that could well introduce genetic code to fight cancer with food. Multiple repetition on activist websites does not constitute research or proof – especially if posted by conflict entrepreneurs who themselves make money off opposition.
I am a big fan of organic farmers, though I don’t buy the product. They are filling a market niche the hard way. They have my respect. Patents in agriculture are not new and not limited to GMO crops. When agreements are signed not to save seed, the patent holder usually is very serious about enforcing that. The best way to lose a patent is to not enforce it. With a $136 million price tag, I’m not sure you could blame anyone for trying to recover R&D costs. Rodale and other proponents of an “all or nothing” organic model have been challenged by legitimate scientific authority. There’s almost always another side. Most organic food these days is provided by very large companies. They use legal toxic compounds of their own. Safe? Sure. But no more and no less than conventionally grown.
As the parent of a cancer survivor – 26 years now – I would not stand in the way of anyone choosing whatever treatment or remedy they desire. However, it is still illegal for any seller of Gerson therapy to claim it cures cancer.
But that too, is off topic. You mention that modern agriculture is to blame for third world food problems. Oddly enough, on my side of the table, it seems that the political rejection of biotech is at least partially responsible for that. Recently, Uganda took a giant step forward by allowing GMO bananas, a basic food staple. In this case, as with others, the development is by non-profits, with the seed given away.
There is still no reliable science to indicate there has ever been a human health or environmental consequence of GMO food. It will be a boon to mankind as genetic therapies have been in medicine.
I appreciate the post.