#agalerts

California jury rules $2 billion verdict against weedkiller Roundup

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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.

Opinion

Opinion: Ag blazing 5 for 2019 (and beyond)

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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.

Agribusiness

Post merger, Bayer vague on lawsuit strategy, despite liability

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It’s been nearly two weeks since the merger between Bayer AG and Monsanto officially began its integration, two months since the deal closed and nearly two years since the planned deal was announced.

Despite that, newly appointed Bayer officials are vague on how they plan to handle the mountain of lawsuits inherited from Monsanto over pesticides such as glyphosate and dicamba.

Agribusiness

Monsanto ordered to pay $289.2 million in landmark Roundup lawsuit verdict

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A San Francisco court has ordered the agribusiness company Monsanto to pay nearly $290 million in damages to a California man who alleges his cancer was caused by Roundup, the company’s most widely used herbicide. The verdict was issued Friday. Dewayne “Lee” Johnson filed the lawsuit against St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. in January 2016, "alleging exposure to the Roundup herbicide he sprayed while working as a groundskeeper for the Benicia Unified School District caused him to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma."