Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/tag/monsanto/)
After five years of reported crop damage by the weed killer dicamba, German agribusiness companies Bayer and BASF will head to trial next week to defend themselves against charges that they intentionally caused the problem in order to increase their profits.
As Bayer faces a growing number of lawsuits alleging its key pesticide, Roundup, causes cancer, Dave Dickey says the company is playing the long game.
For the third straight year, a volatile pesticide is damaging crops across the Midwest and South, despite federal and state efforts to lessen the drift.
“The egg business has undergone massive changes in the last 45 years. Once predominantly represented by such small family farms, it began to shift heavily toward industrialization and more vertically integrated systems, according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center (AGMRC). Where once a flock of 400 laying hens was the norm, industrial flocks today can top 5 million hens.”
Farmers have been using the weed killer glyphosate – a key ingredient of the product Roundup – at soaring levels even as glyphosate has become increasingly less effective and as health concerns and lawsuits mount.
A California jury made an unprecedented $2.055 billion ruling in favor of a married couple who claimed a pesticide made by agrichemical company formerly known as Monsanto caused their cancer. Alva and Alberta Pilliod filed the case on Aug. 14, 2017, against Monsanto alleging the repeated use of the pesticide Roundup and its key ingredient glyphosate since the 1970s caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The Livermore, Calif. couple were awarded $1 billion each in punitive damages and $55,206,000 in compensatory damages, the Associated Press reported.
Attorneys general for five states warned U.S. regulators that a merger between Bayer and Monsanto would impact food prices and end the family farm, recent documents show.
If the Illinois Department of Agriculture sees more complaints related to the herbicide dicamba this year, state agriculture officials worry lawmakers may consider banning its use altogether.
Breaking out major prognostic tools (including an 8-ball, Ouija board, paper fortune teller and dart board...yeah we're high tech around here) here are some of the big agricultural issues on the horizon for 2019.
In the past year Dave Dickey has blogged and waxed on a number of consequential agricultural events. Find out which ag story was the the most consequential in 2018.