With OK From EPA, Use Of Controversial Weedkiller Is Expected To Double

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday that it will let farmers keep spraying the weedkilling chemical dicamba on Monsanto's new dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton. The decision is a victory for the biotech giant and the farmers who want to use the company's newest weedkilling technology.

Farmers across the Midwest and Mid-South have been waiting for the EPA's decision for months ever since it became clear that dicamba was drifting into thousands of fields where it didn't belong and damaging those crops. Some groups have called on the EPA to ban the most troublesome uses of dicamba, following the lead of regulators in Arkansas.

The EPA, however, decided that the problems that occurred this past summer can be solved simply by adding a few new restrictions on how dicamba is used. In the future, applying dicamba will require special training; it can't be applied if the wind speed is greater than 10 mph and farmers will be asked to pay more attention to the risk that dicamba spraying may pose to nearby orchards and vegetable fields.

More