Herbicide Connected with Genetically Modified Plants is Escaping and Killing Non- Genetically Modified Plants

A Failure of Obama Agricultural Regulation and Congress

The opponents of genetically modified crops and treatments for crops argue, among other things, that the stuff cannot be confined to where it is applied. If Farmer A uses a specific herbicide to work with genetically modified soybeans and that herbicide escapes it will raise holy hell with the non-genetically modified soybeans.

This is what has happened with a Monsanto product that the USDA and Congress apparently approved in near total ignorance.

But as dicamba use has increased, so too have reports that it “volatilizes,” or re-vaporizes and travels to other fields. That harms nearby trees, such as the dogwood outside of Blytheville, as well as nonresistant soybeans, fruits and vegetables, and plants used as habitats by bees and other pollinators.

According to one 2004 assessment, dicamba is 75 to 400 times more dangerous to off-target plants than the common weed killer glyphosate, even at very low doses. It is particularly toxic to soybeans — the very crop it was designed to protect — that haven’t been modified for resistance.

Yes, the stuff is drifting away from where it is being used properly and creating financial ruin.

At the Smiths’ farm, several thousand acres of soybeans are growing too slowly because of dicamba, representing losses on a $2 million investment.

“This is a fact,” the elder Smith said. “If the yield goes down, we’ll be out of business.”

So how did this happen? Green and stupidity of course.

But during a July 29 call with EPA officials, a dozen state weed scientists expressed unanimous concern that dicamba is more volatile than manufacturers have indicated, according to several scientists on the call. Field tests by researchers at the Universities of Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas have since found that the new dicamba herbicides can volatilize and float to other fields as long as 72 hours after application.

Regulators did not have access to much of this data. Although Monsanto and BASF submitted hundreds of studies to the EPA, only a handful of reports considered volatility in a real-world field setting, as opposed to a greenhouse or a lab, according to regulatory filings. Under EPA rules, manufacturers are responsible for funding and conducting the safety tests the agency uses to evaluate products.

Pigweed, a highly competitive plant that grows in cotton and soybean fields and has developed resistance to some pesticides, grows tall over soybean fields weakened by nearby dicamba use. (Andrea Morales/For The Washington Post)

Yes, you are reading that correctly.  The industry conducts the research on safety.  Gosh, what could go wrong there?