Bootheel farmers file lawsuit against Monsanto over dicamba herbicide crop damage

The operators of two Southeast Missouri soybean farms have filed a class-action lawsuit against St. Louis-based Monsanto Co., alleging their crops were damaged by exposure to dicamba herbicide.

The 35-page suit was filed Wednesday in Mississippi County Circuit Court.

Plaintiffs in the case are McIvan Farms Inc., which operates in Mississippi County, and Steve and Vickie Jackson, who are partners of V & S Jackson Farms in Dunklin County.

Dicamba, a Monsanto product, is a type of herbicide designed for use on genetically modified soybeans and cotton. While it can be an effective tool for farmers battling weeds, improper use can be devastating to crops not designed to withstand it.

According to the Missouri Department of Agriculture, dicamba herbicide sprayed on fields can drift onto adjacent farm fields and damage crops that are not dicamba-resistant.

St. Louis attorney Don Downing, who represents the plaintiffs, said Monsanto has been hit with numerous lawsuits over the use of dicamba.

Downing said damage has been widespread. In 2017, there were thousands of complaints across the nation, according to the suit.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency reported more than 3.6 million acres of soybeans planted in the United States were damaged by dicamba in 2017 alone, he wrote in the suit.

As of late October, the Missouri Department of Agriculture had received more than 300 dicamba-related complaints as compared with 27 in 2016 and three in 2015. The majority of complaints came from Southeast Missouri, primarily Mississippi, Scott, Stoddard, New Madrid and Dunklin counties, the suit states.

It is estimated at least 325,000 acres of soybeans were damaged by the herbicide, Downing said in the suit.

Nationally, more than 2,000 “dicamba-related injury investigations have been or are being conducted,” according to the lawsuit.

The four-count suit alleges Monsanto’s dicamba crop system is “ultrahazardous” and accuses the company of negligence, defective design of the seed and (herbicide) trespass. The suit seeks unspecified punitive damages.

Downing, who grew up in Kennett, Missouri, said a judge will have to decide whether to allow the litigation to proceed as a class-action case on behalf of all Missouri farmers whose crops were damaged by the herbicide.

If the judge does not allow the case to proceed as a class-action suit, more farmers will file individual lawsuits against Monsanto, Downing predicted.

Monsanto developed seed genetically engineered to be resistant to dicamba, which “meant that the new dicamba formulations would be sprayed over the top of crops after their emergence from the ground,” according to the suit.

The suit alleges that as a result, dicamba was sprayed on fields much later in the growing season, “in months that are hot and humid — and in the vicinity of susceptible nonresistant crops also emerging.”

The suit states that “from the early stages of Monsanto’s development of a crop system using dicamba, weed scientists and others warned of harm from large-scale dicamba use in summer months.”

Downing wrote in the suit Monsanto decided to sell dicamba-resistant cotton seeds, starting in 2015, rather than wait for the EPA to register a “supposed low volatility” dicamba herbicide for in-crop use.

Monsanto’s “public stance” was dicamba herbicides were not to be sprayed over the top of crops, the suit states.

“Monsanto representatives, however, advised farmers to do just the opposite — to spray existing dicamba products over the top of their crops in 2015,” the lawsuit alleges.

In 2016, Monsanto put its “own financial interests ahead of safety and moved forward with commercialization of dicamba-resistant soybeans,” the suit alleges.

But Michael Aide of Southeast Missouri State University’s agriculture department told the Southeast Missourian earlier this year Monsanto advised farmers not to use the old herbicide recommendations.

“Some farmers ignored it,” Aide said.

Monsanto has yet to file a response to the lawsuit in Mississippi County court.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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