The Illinois Department of Agriculture was warned a year ago about the potential crop damage that could be caused by the herbicide dicamba if the department didn’t tighten regulations on its use, according to department documents disclosed in a report by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.
The Center said the warning came from an industry group of pesticide applicators during a December 2016 meeting held to discuss whether dicamba should be designated as “restricted use,” which means only certified applicators can apply the pesticide. A non-restricted use pesticide can be purchased and applied by anyone, and records of application are not required.
The Environmental Protection Agency in November 2016 approved new formulations of the herbicide for use on a new genetically modified soybean seed made by Monsanto, leading to a sharp rise in dicamba spraying in 2017.
The Center said the herbicide damaged at least 600,000 acres of Illinois soybeans and reportedly injured trees at Illinois nature preserves and vineyards in the southern part of the state. Nationwide, at least 3.1 million acres of soybeans in at least 19 states were damaged by dicamba this year, according to Kevin Bradley, a professor at the University of Missouri. While the Illinois agriculture department has not taken any action, the EPA named dicamba a restricted use pesticide for 2018, the article noted.
Details of the meeting were contained in state documents obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.
“We wanted to have the meeting to discuss it,” said Jean Payne, the executive director of the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association, an industry group of pesticide applicators and chemical companies. “We wanted to see what we thought the issues were and how to be consistent with neighboring states.”
But Payne, whose organization includes both Monsanto and BASF, said many officials in the meeting agreed that it was unfair to impose additional regulations because they had never been imposed on dicamba before.