US Bans Three Weed Killers

In a major setback to world agrochemical companies, a federal judge in Arizona has banned dicamba-based herbicides.  The court also found that the EPA violated the law by allowing them on the market.  The ban is specific to three herbicides manufactured by Bayer, BASF and Syngenta.  These are considered responsible for millions of acres of crop damage and harm to endangered species and their habitats.  The Ninth Circuit previously banned the products in 2020, but the Trump regime reapproved the products just one week before his camping swing through Georgia.

The suit to against the use was brought by farmers and conservationists. The EPA was found not to have followed public comment regulations before approval.  Dicamba was introduced in the US in 1967, but was not widely used because of its propensity to volatilize during warm weather.  As a gas the herbicide drifts widely causing extensive damage.  Monsanto and BASF produced crop seeds tolerant to dicamba and encouraged farmers to use their version of dicamba which the companies claimed was less prove to drifting off target.  About sixty-five million acres have been planted with dicamba resistant crops, about the size of Oregon according to the EPA.  Discovery documents in the suit show that the companies knew about the potential for drift damage and that scientists at EPA complained they did not have enough time to study the herbicides before approving them.  A year later EPA produced a report saying dicamba was still prone to spreading to adjacent areas.

The ruling affects Bayer's XtendiMax herbicide, which it inherited from Monsanto when it acquired the company in 2018, Syngenta's Tavium herbicide, and BASF's weedkiller Engenia.  The ban comes at a bad time for Bayer, which is coping with mass litigation over Monsanto's Roundup herbicide that contains glyphosate, a chemical found to cause cancer in humans.  So far Bayer has paid billions in damages and settlements.