Each year since Monsanto’s dicamba-resistant Xtend seeds have hit the market, farmers and rural communities have braced for record levels of pesticide drift. Even with this year’s late start to planting season, 2019 may see the highest number of dicamba drift incidents yet.
Long before Xtendimax was approved, dicamba was well-known as a particularly volatile chemical - it simply does not stay where it is put, no matter how it is applied. Early advocates warned of the damage this herbicide can and would do to off-target organisms.
Bayer, however, refuses to accept that its new star pesticide is a problem. Instead, the company is taking a page out of the “deny, deny, deny” corporate playbook, while blaming applicators for applying the product incorrectly.
From its inception, the Xtend crop system was bound to be a divisive disaster for all kinds of farmers. Herbicide resistance is just another instance of Monsanto (now Bayer) promising a short-sighted “solution” to a problem of its own creation. While farmers who don’t use the Xtend system are hit with dicamba drift, crop damage, and yield loss, Bayer is reaping the financial gains of an increase in acreage planted to dicamba-resistant soybeans.
Continue reading at: EPA Silent As Dicamba Drift Rages On | Pesticide Action Network
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