Dive Brief:
- Three Senate Democrats are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to deny applications to re-register the herbicide dicamba, saying the weedkiller “simply cannot be used without causing unreasonable adverse effects.”
- The herbicide, which was pulled from the market earlier this year, can drift when sprayed and cause “irreparable harm” to human health, critical habitats and neighboring crops, according to a letter from Sens. Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch.
- Re-registering the herbicide with tighter usage restrictions, as the agency has done in the past, has not been enough to mitigate damage from dicamba, the letter said. “It is now abundantly clear that dicamba cannot be ‘fixed.'”
Dive Insight:
After a federal court rescinded registration for dicamba earlier this year, farmers have remained in limbo for months as to whether they can use the popular weedkiller.
Dicamba has been traditionally sprayed on genetically-resistant cotton and soybeans. The herbicide is an ingredient in weedkillers made by crop protection giants including Bayer, which disclosed the uncertainty around re-approval has created additional headwinds in a difficult agricultural market.
Although farmers were able to spray dicamba this year using existing retail stocks, that likely won’t be the case next year unless the EPA moves to re-register the herbicide. Bayer, along with competitors Syngenta and BASF, have submitted applications to approve dicamba-based products with new restrictions, though the agency has yet to make a decision.
Progressives in the Senate and environmental groups are fighting corporate efforts, citing studies that show dicamba may pose a serious risk to public health and surrounding habitats. When sprayed, dicamba can drift and damage plants not genetically modified to withstand the chemical: An Illinois nonprofit found an alarming rise in sick and dying trees throughout the state, for example, with many of those trees containing dicamba residues.
Last month, the EPA approved registration of potential dicamba alternatives glufosinate-P and glufosinate-P ammonium. The approval was the first under a new process designed to protect endangered species, and includes a number of additional restrictions facing farmer pushback.
The EPA and state lawmakers have tried to address dicamba damage over the years through increased restrictions on usage, such as placing limits on when farmers can spray the herbicide. However, “these efforts have failed,” the senators wrote in their letter.
“Dicamba products simply cannot be used without causing unreasonable adverse effects,” the letter said.