We have been thinking a lot about food security and the importance of farmers who produce our food. Unfortunately, specialty crop growers, organic farmers, and farms that are trying to step away from conventional practices and move toward a more regenerative system face many obstacles. Policy, law, and research funding tends to favor the chemically-intensive industrialized sectors of our food system rather than the specialty crop, and more regenerative sectors. This reality has been thrown into stark relief in recent years with the flood of complaints about off-target injuries caused by highly volatile herbicides such as dicamba and 2, 4-D.
Organic farmers, orchards, vegetable farms, and vineyards are seeing injuries such as curled, cupped, stunted, and deformed leaves and plants. Farmers can withstand only so much injury before the integrity of their crops and the health of their plants suffer. These herbicide injuries are a serious threat to many multi-generational family farms.
Record Number of Complaints
According to the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA), official landowner and grower complaints of damage to crops and plants caused by the herbicide dicamba surpassed an astonishing 700 in Illinois last year, with many more injuries left unreported and undocumented. It is the same situation in many other states: record number of complaints and widespread under-reporting of injuries.
“We’re just running ourselves ragged, just trying to get out there and collect the evidence,” says Dave Scott, who is in charge of Indiana’s pesticide investigations. Nevertheless, state officials continue to offer inadequate protective measures, apparently more concerned with protecting chemical companies than protecting private property rights, specialty growers, and ecosystem health.
A recent lawsuit, however, has provided some hope for those harmed by drifting dicamba. A jury found Monsanto and Bayer liable for damages to a Missouri peach farmer for years of crop losses. The farmer was awarded $15 million for losses of 30,000 trees. Bayer/Monsanto was also hit with $250 million in punitive damages stemming from their bad actions in marketing the product.
Monsanto started selling its dicamba-tolerant seeds before the US EPA approved the herbicides for the market. The suit alleged that Monsanto knew that dicamba drift would damage crops and force neighboring farms to buy and plant Monsanto’s dicamba-resistant seeds so their crops would not be impacted by drifting herbicide.
“This verdict is just the tip of the iceberg — there is a long queue of farmers who have been impacted by dicamba drift and deserve their day in court,” said Linda Wells, Pesticide Action Network organizing director. “The internal Monsanto (now Bayer) documents uncovered in this case show that the company released a highly destructive and intentionally untested product onto the market, and used its influence to cheat the regulatory system.”
We are about to face yet another year of widespread use of dicamba and other highly volatile herbicides. However, the license for dicamba is up for renewal this year, and we are poised to fight it. Because our farms and food are vital to the health of our communities. But it is not just crops that are damaged.
Private Lands Injured Too
In recent years, we have received increased reports of plant and tree injury on both public and private lands, and these injuries are symptomatic of herbicide exposure. The big problem is that until recently no one has been monitoring what happens when these herbicides move beyond the farm field and into parks, forests, and rural communities. With the help of highly talented and dedicated PRN members, such as retired IDNR biologist Martin Kemper, we have been able to document symptoms of herbicide damage to trees and other non-target plants that provide critical resources for wildlife.
Kemper has been working with us and other members to develop a report based on two years’ worth of data from our Tree and Plant Health Monitoring Program. The report will be released this spring. Our goal is to show that injuries are far more widespread than has been reported to IDOA and that we need to act now to protect our farms and ecosystems.
Your Help Needed
We need your help now more than ever. If you suspect damage to your trees, crops, pollinator habitat, etc., please document it. Visit our website at prairierivers.org/monitoring-tree-and-plant-health/ to learn how to file an injury complaint with IDOA as well as how to document suspected injuries through our monitoring database. You can use our online reporting form from your smartphone or desktop computer, just fill out the form, upload your photos of injured plants, and submit. Every bit of information helps.
