Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/tag/bayer/)
The Trump administration has formally revised a proposal that would significantly restrict the type of research that can be used to draft environmental and public health regulations, a measure that experts say amounts to one of the government’s most far-reaching restrictions on science.
The Department of Agriculture is looking to halve the U.S. farming industry’s environmental footprint by mid-century in a target that includes several climate and clean energy goals.
The $265 million verdict issued last week against German agribusiness giants Bayer and BASF is just the beginning of a new legal battle between the companies and thousands of farmers.
Missouri agriculture officials are struggling to address a backlog of complaints from farmers who allege that dicamba-based herbicide drift from another farm has damaged their crops. The Missouri Department of Agriculture has about 600 pending pesticide investigations. Some of them date back to 2016, the year that Bayer-owned Monsanto began selling its dicamba-tolerant soybeans.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - A federal jury determined that German agribusiness giants Bayer and BASF will have to pay $250 million in punitive damages to Bader Farms, the largest peach farm in Missouri, for damage caused by their dicamba-related products. The verdict comes at the end of a three-week trial of a case where Bader Farms alleges it is going out of business because of damage incurred by the companies' dicamba herbicides moving off of neighboring fields and harming their 1,000 acres of peach orchards.
On Friday, the jury ruled that both Monsanto, which was acquired by Bayer in 2018, and BASF acted negligently and Bader Farms should receive $15 million in actual damages for future losses incurred because of the loss of their orchard.
Read also Reporter’s notebook: Five key takeaways from trial of peach farmer’s lawsuit vs. Bayer, BASF
Bader Farms will receive a total of $265 million. BASF and Bayer will have to sort out what portion of the damages each company pays.
Bader Farms is among thousands of farms, comprising millions of acres of crops, that have alleged dicamba damage since 2015.
With closing arguments set for 9 a.m. Friday, here's the biggest news items coming out of the three-week trial of the lawsuit filed by Bader Farms against Bayer and BASF.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - Closing arguments are set for 9 a.m. Friday in the federal trial of a lawsuit alleging Monsanto and BASF intentionally caused widespread damage to farms in order to bolster sales of a new pesticide and seed system. Bader Farms, the largest peach farm in Missouri, alleges that the companies, through the release of the new products built around the pesticide dicamba, are responsible for irreparable damage to its 1,000 acres of peach trees. Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018, and BASF deny the allegations that dicamba is volatile when used correctly. The companies blame the issues at Bader Farms on other issues, including soil fungus and weather events.
The cropping system, designed to help farmers kill weeds that are increasingly resistant to the pesticide glyphosate, was hailed as the next generation of farming.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - A retired BASF executive told a federal jury on Tuesday that the company never intended to enter into a “joint venture” with Monsanto over the dicamba-tolerant cropping system that was released beginning in 2015.
“We didn’t want to be exposed to Monsanto’s losses,” said Alyson Emanuel, who in her then-role as vice president of global strategic marketing for herbicides helped negotiate the contracts between BASF and Monsanto that governed the relationship. In an effort to combat growing weed resistance, Monsanto genetically engineered soybean and cotton seeds that could withstand being sprayed by dicamba, a volatile herbicide that has been used since the 1960s. The two companies also developed new versions of the pesticide designed to be less volatile. BASF and Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018, are being sued by Bader Farms, the largest peach farm in Missouri, over the dicamba-tolerant cropping system, which has allegedly damaged millions of acres of crops since its release.
For the past two weeks of a federal trial brought by Missouri’s largest peach farm against German agribusiness giants Bayer and BASF, the focus has been on the weed killer dicamba.
On Monday, with the plaintiff wrapping up its case, lawyers representing Monsanto shifted the attention to everything but the herbicide. Monsanto was bought by Bayer in 2018,
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - In July 2016, Bill Bader, frustrated by the second straight year of alleged dicamba damage to his peach trees, got out his invoice book and hand wrote bills to his neighbors he suspected of illegally spraying the herbicide: $720,000 to one, $660,000 to another and $1.2 million to a third, according to testimony in federal court this week.
Bader wrote out the biggest bill - $3.3 million for damages to peaches and the environment - to Monsanto, the St. Louis-based agribusiness company he blamed for the damage from the volatile weed killer. “I made a mistake, and I was blowing off steam,” Bader testified on Wednesday in the second week of a trial of a lawsuit he filed against German agribusiness giants Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018, and BASF. “I was hoping to get their attention.”
Bader Farms, the largest peach producer in Missouri, is seeking $20.9 damages.