The proudly independent Arkansas State Plant Board, responding to nearly 1,000 complaints of crop damage due to dicamba, voted in early January to bar use of the herbicide on cotton and soybeans during the 2018 growing season. The seed and ag-chemical giant Monsanto “sued the board and each individual member, calling their decision arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful,” reports NPR.
A half-dozen farmers sued the board as well. One of them claims the board ought to allow dicamba spraying until May 25, instead of the April 16 cutoff set by the board. “There is a chance that the plant board itself may not survive in its current form,” says NPR. “Proposals have been floated in Arkansas’ legislature to move the board inside the state Department of Agriculture, make it less independent.”
NPR said there is “a kind of David vs. Goliath battle underway over a weedkiller.” Monsanto insists dicamba is safe to use. The problems of 2017, it says, are the result of mistakes in applying the herbicide. The EPA tightened its guidelines on dicamba use this year, and a handful of states added their own requirements, mostly to block application on hot days. Arkansas has the strictest rules because the plant board, as NPR says, “decided that dicamba could not be adequately controlled in hot weather.”