On May 3, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it received an application from Bayer CropScience LP for a new product containing the currently registered active ingredient dicamba. The proposed product includes use of dicamba on dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton. EPA is announcing a 30-day public comment period consistent with Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Section 3(c)(4) because the proposed product involves a new use pattern for...
Archives
April 15, 2024
EPA Announces End Dates for Sales, Distribution, and Use of Existing Stocks on Over-the-Top Uses of Dicamba
On April 3, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Federal Register notice providing notice of its issuance of an Existing Stocks Order and announcing the end dates for sales, distribution, and use of existing stocks on over-the-top (OTT) uses of dicamba subject to the Order. 89 Fed. Reg. 23010. This announcement follows the February 14, 2024, Existing Stocks Order for Dicamba Products Previously Registered for Over-the-Top Use on Dicamba-Tolerant Cotton and Soybean...
On February 14, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an Existing Stocks Order for Dicamba Products Previously Registered for Over-the-Top Use on Dicamba-Tolerant Cotton and Soybean (Existing Stocks Order). This announcement was needed in response to the February 6, 2024, ruling by the U.S. District Court of Arizona vacating the 2020 registrations for over-the-top (OTT) dicamba products. EPA states this Existing Stocks Order “addresses use of the formerly-registered...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on August 18, 2022, it released its draft ecological risk assessment for dicamba for a 60-day public review. 87 Fed. Reg. 50854. The 287-page assessment examines the potential ecological risks associated with currently registered uses of dicamba on non-target, non-listed species. Risks to federally listed threatened and endangered species are not evaluated in the assessment. EPA is reevaluating the risks of dicamba...
On June 8, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the issuance of an existing stocks order under Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Section 6(a)(1) governing further sale, distribution, and use of existing stocks of three reduced volatility dicamba products (XtendiMax®, EngeniaTM, and FeXapanTM) with conditional registrations that were vacated by the June 3, 2020, decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in National Family...
June 6, 2020
Ninth Circuit Vacates EPA’s Renewal of Conditional Registrations for Lower Volatility Dicamba Formulations
On June 3, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Ninth Circuit) issued an opinion in National Family Farm Coalition v. EPA, No. 19-70115, vacating the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2018 decisions to extend the conditional registrations for three reduced volatility dicamba herbicides, Bayer’s XtendiMax, Corteva’s FeXapan, and BASF’s Engenia. The manufacturers of these dicamba products designed them to facilitate control of glyphosate...
On October 31, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it is extending the registration of dicamba for two years for “over-the-top” use (application to growing plants) to control weeds in fields for cotton and soybean plants genetically engineered to resist dicamba. EPA states that the registration for these dicamba products will expire on December 20, 2020, unless EPA decides to further extend it. EPA states that the label changes described below...
On January 3, 2018, officials with the Arkansas State Plant Board (Plant Board) voted 11 to 3 to uphold its statewide ban of dicamba. The vote came after a subcommittee of the state’s legislative council asked the board to reevaluate its earlier decision. The subcommittee will revisit the Plant Board’s decision again on January 16, 2018. That the subcommittee plans to revisit its decision in just two weeks is noteworthy and illustrates the controversy surrounding...
On December 14, 2017, the Missouri Department of Agriculture (MDA) announced that it issued and collected the first round of fines resulting from investigations regarding the pesticide dicamba. The news release states that the first wave of civil penalties issued to applicators, all from Dunklin County, were issued as “a result of investigations of complaints during the 2016 growing season,” and the “civil penalties, ranging from $1,500 to $62,250, were issued for pesticide...
On October 13, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it had reached an agreement with Monsanto, BASF, and DuPont on measures “to further minimize the potential for drift to damage neighboring crops from the use of dicamba formulations used to control weeds in genetically modified cotton and soybeans,” and “new requirements for the use of dicamba ‘over the top’ (application to growing plants) will allow farmers to make informed choices for seed...