Some farmers still use dicamba despite ban - Entrepreneur Generations

Dozens of Arkansas farmers could face thousands of dollars in fines after using a banned herbicide on their crops. Last year Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, introduced varieties of soybeans and cotton that are tolerant of the herbicide dicamba. But dicamba tends to drift to neighboring fields and hurt other crops and plants, Dan Charles reports for NPR.

At first Arkansas and a few other states restricted spraying dicamba after April 15 to protect newly sprouted crops from from the pesticide. But after reports that dicamba had damaged millions of acres nationwide, last July Arkansas and Missouri banned the sale and use of dicamba, and other states placed restrictions on its use. Arkansas farmers who defy the ban face fines of $1,000 to $25,000 per violation, but some still used the chemical this growing season because of economic concerns.

Two farmers who asked to remain anonymous told Charles that farmers used dicamba and Monsanto's dicamba-tolerant seeds because they think it will produce a bigger harvest. Another told Charles that "spraying dicamba is the only way to stay in business, and paying the fine is cheaper than fighting weeds any other way."

But the fact that some farmers still use dicamba endangers other farmers' crops. Tad Nowlin, whose northeastern Arkansas farm is just across the border from Missouri, told Charles that he was able to get rid of weeds without using dicamba, but his soybeans were damaged by dicamba drift from someone else's farm. "If other people insist on using dicamba, he may be forced to plant those new dicamba-tolerant soybeans, because those plants won't get injured. And if he does that, he'd be tempted to spray dicamba, too," Charles reports.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2CydSxb Some farmers still use dicamba despite ban - Entrepreneur Generations

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