Soybean Farmers File Suit Over Allegedly Destructive ‘Dicamba-Tolerant Crop System’

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

Two Tennessee soybean farmers have filed suit against the makers of a dicamba-tolerant crop system that has supposedly caused “massive harm” to crops throughout the country. The case names as defendants Monsanto Company; BASF SE; two BASF subsidiaries; E.I. DuPont De Nemours and Company; and Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. According to the complaint, the companies collaborated to develop, market, and sell a crop system consisting of dicamba products and dicamba-resistant seeds without warning farmers of the damage it could cause to surrounding farms.

“Defendants’ dicamba-tolerant crop system cannot be safely used for its intended purpose regardless the degree of care without causing collateral damage to nearby crops, which are not part of the Defendants’ dicamba-tolerant crop system,” the complaint alleges.

 Dicamba is a powerful herbicide that has been used for many years to “burn down fields in an effort to control weeds,” the suit explains. Before the defendants released their crop system, the case continues, the chemical was applied only before crops grew or post-harvest because of its destructive effect.  The defendants partnered together to develop genetically modified, dicamba-resistant seeds to sell in conjunction with Monsanto’s Xtendimax, BASF’s Engenia, and DuPont’s Fexapan dicamba-based herbicide products, the lawsuit says, allowing farmers to apply the herbicides “over-the-top” of their crops for the first time.

The lawsuit claims the defendants misled regulatory agencies regarding the dangerous side effects of their crop system – namely, that dicamba is extremely “volatile” and will drift through the air or groundwater to nearby non-resistant crops, causing collateral damage. The defendants insisted that their products guaranteed “safety to nearby crops” and refused to allow independent volatilization tests, according to the suit. Despite their claims, the case argues that the companies’ new dicamba formulations were not “appreciably less volatile” than previous formulations, as they were still prone to “drift or inversion.”

Further, the lawsuit takes issue with the product labels’ apparent lack of “full, complete, and accurate information about the extreme toxicity” of the defendants’ dicamba products. The defendants have effectively failed to educate farmers on the proper application of the herbicide to avoid damaging neighboring crops, the suit argues.

The design of the defendants’ supposed collusion was to leave farmers with no choice but to purchase the companies’ crop system, the lawsuit charges:

“Defendants sold such GMO products and crop-systems through their partnership and agreement with the knowledge and intent that farmers who were injured would have no alternative, but purchase their products and crop-system (as a defense) to avoid their crop from being ruined, thus further enhancing Defendants’ revenue and complete control of the marketplace for dicamba-tolerant soybeans and crop systems and control and domination of the soybean and cotton markets.”