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Federal Dicamba Ruling Called 'Vital Victory for Farmers and the Environment'
"The court today resoundingly reaffirmed what we have always maintained: The EPA's and Monsanto's claims of dicamba's safety were irresponsible and unlawful," said one plaintiff.
Feb 06, 2024
In what one plaintiff called "a sweeping victory for family farmers and dozens of endangered plants and animals," a federal court in Arizona on Tuesday rescinded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2020 approval of the highly volatile herbicide dicamba for use on certain genetically engineered crops.
In a 47-page ruling, U.S. District Judge David C. Bury found that the EPA failed to comply with public notice and comment requirements under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), legislation passed in 1947 to protect agricultural workers, consumers, and the environment.
"This is a vital victory for farmers and the environment," said George Kimbrell, legal director at the Center for Food Safety (CFS), a plaintiff in the case. "Time and time again, the evidence has shown that dicamba cannot be used without causing massive and unprecedented harm to farms as well as endangering plants and pollinators."
"The court today resoundingly reaffirmed what we have always maintained: The EPA's and Monsanto's claims of dicamba's safety were irresponsible and unlawful," Kimbrell added.
Dicamba has damaged millions of acres of U.S. cropland since the EPA, during the Trump administration, dubiously approved its use on genetically engineered cotton and soybeans developed by Monsanto, which was acquired by Bayer in 2018.
The EPA subsequently identified spray drift as the main environmental risk for dicamba due to its potential to contaminate nontargeted crops, declaring that since 2016 "there has been a substantial increase in the overall number of reported nontarget plant incidents."
As CFS explained on Tuesday:
In today's decision, the court canceled dicamba's over-the-top use, holding that EPA violated FIFRA's public input requirement prior to the approval. This violation is "very serious," according to the court, especially because the 9th Circuit previously held EPA failed to consider serious risks of over-the-top dicamba in issuing the prior registration. The court outlined the massive damage to stakeholders that were deprived of their opportunity to comment, such as growers that do not use over-the-top dicamba and suffered significant financial losses and states that repeatedly reported landscape-level damage yet, in the same 2020 decision, lost the ability to impose restrictions greater than those imposed by the federal government without formal legislative and/or rulemaking processes. As a result, the court found "the EPA is unlikely to issue the same registrations" again after taking these stakeholders' concerns into account.
"We are grateful that the court held the EPA and Monsanto accountable for the massive damage from dicamba to farmers, farmworkers, and the environment, and halted its use," Lisa Griffith of the National Family Farm Coalition—another plaintiff in the case—said in a statement Tuesday. "The pesticide system that Monsanto sells should not be sprayed as it cannot be sprayed safely."
Tuesday's decision in Arizona follows a July 2022 ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis that found Monsanto and BASF were liable for damage to a Missouri peach farmer's groves caused by dicamba.
A 2021 EPA report revealed that high-ranking Trump administration officials intentionally excluded scientific evidence of dicamba-related hazards, including the risk of widespread drift damage, before reapproving the dangerous chemical. A separate EPA report described the widespread harm to farmers and the environment caused by dicamba during the 2020 growing season.
"Every summer since the approval of dicamba, our farm has suffered significant damage to a wide range of vegetable crops," said Rob Faux, a farmer and communications manager at the advocacy group Pesticide Action Network, a case plaintiff. "Today's decision provides much-needed and overdue protection for farmers and the environment."
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'Bitter Blow' to Biodiversity and Health as EU Pulls Proposed Pesticide Rule
"Those most vulnerable, including children, farmers, and farming communities, will continue to pay the price for the E.U.'s inaction," said one advocate.
Feb 06, 2024
With agricultural business owners continuing protests across France, Greece, Spain, and other European countries, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen angered public health and biodiversity groups Tuesday as she announced the body would withdraw its proposed law to sharply cut the amount of chemical pesticides used in the European Union—a capitulation, said one journalist, to "landowners."
Brussels-based Arthur Neslen, who has reported for The Guardian and Politico, called von der Leyen's announcement "shocking, cowardly, and dishonest" as she withdrew the Sustainable Use Regulation (SUR).
The proposal was first introduced in 2022 and was aimed at slashing pesticide use in half by 2030 and banning pesticide products in areas including urban green spaces and protected sites under the Natura 2000 program, as well as promoting the use of sustainable alternatives.
With farmers staging protests across the E.U. in recent days, complaining over the high cost of maintaining agricultural businesses in Europe, von der Leyen said the SUR had become "polarizing."
Last week, the commission provoked an outcry from environmental advocates when it announced it would allow farmers to delay implementation of a rule requiring them to set aside some of their land to promote biodiversity.
Now, said critics on Tuesday, the commission's decision regarding SUR would further contribute to biodiversity loss as well as water and soil pollution and potential health impacts for people and wildlife.
Reducing European farmers' "dependency on pesticides is not only short-sighted, but a major disservice to public health," said Anne Stauffer, deputy director of the Health and Environment Alliance. "Those most vulnerable, including children, farmers, and farming communities, will continue to pay the price for the E.U.'s inaction."
Grace O'Sullivan, a member of European Parliament representing Ireland, noted that pesticides will continue to be permitted "in nature reserves, city parks, even playgrounds."
In her speech, von der Leyen said farmers "deserve to be listened to" as they face drought and other effects of the climate crisis, higher costs of living, and other factors that make agriculture more expensive.
"Only if our farmers can live off the land will they invest in the future. And only if we achieve our climate and environmental goals together, will farmers be able to continue to make a living," the commission president said.
Friends of the Earth said the "translation" of von der Leyen's comments was "farmers will keep on being poisoned and nature degraded, while the pesticide industry reaps massive profits."
"We cannot afford to leave the pesticide issue unresolved," the group said. "We need real solutions now to support farmers in transitioning away from toxic chemicals."
The Pesticide Action Network (PAN) said the commission's decision—which still has to be ratified by the College of Commissioners in the coming weeks—was made to benefit large "agribusiness interests" and not people struggling to run small farms.
"The European Commission just took a decision that is harmful to farmers and their families, as the first victims of pesticide use," said Martin Dermine, PAN Europe executive director. "Pesticide pollution is a huge problem that has to be tackled. It pollutes our waters, harms our health, and destroys the biodiversity that we depend on. It destroys fertile soil and endangers food production in the long run. We have to move towards a healthy and sustainable form of agriculture quickly, doing nothing is not an option in the light of the biodiversity crisis we're in."
"Thousands of scientists and millions of citizens have urged E.U. politicians to take urgent action," he added. "Not answering citizens' demands goes against democracy and only favors agribusiness."
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'Shameful': UK Approves 'Emergency' Use of Banned Bee-Killing Pesticide
"The real 'emergency' here is our declining biodiversity," said one campaigner. "It's time farmers got support for alternatives, not a green light for using toxic chemicals."
Jan 24, 2023
Biodiversity defenders have sounded the alarm about the United Kingdom government's Monday decision to provide another so-called "emergency" exception for the use of an outlawed neonicotinoid pesticide lethal to bees.
"Bad news again for bees as the U.K. government allows banned neonicotinoids in our fields against the advice of its own experts," Friends of the Earth campaigner Sandra Bell tweeted. "The real 'emergency' here is our declining biodiversity—it's time farmers got support for alternatives, not a green light for using toxic chemicals."
Despite U.K. guidance affirming that emergency applications should not be granted more than once, the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) announced for the third straight year that it will permit the use of sugar beet seeds coated with thiamethoxam under certain conditions in England.
"If the government is serious about halting biodiversity loss by 2030, they must support farmers to explore long-term, agroecological solutions that don't threaten our endangered bee population."
Against the recommendation of an independent panel of pesticide experts, the agency approved the use of thiamethoxam just four days after the European Union's highest court ruled that providing emergency derogations for prohibited neonicotinoid-treated seeds is inconsistent with the bloc's laws. The U.K. withdrew from the E.U. in 2020.
DEFRA's emergency authorization for thiamethoxam-coated sugar beet seeds also comes one month after the U.K. government advocated for a stronger global pesticide reduction target at the United Nations COP15 biodiversity summit.
Calling the authorization "yet another shameful episode in a long list of failures to protect the U.K. environment," the British chapter of the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) said that "putting bees and other insects at risk shows just how seriously this government takes the biodiversity crisis."
\u201cFlying in the face of expert recommendation and putting #bees and other #insects at risk shows just how seriously this government takes the #biodiversity crisis. Yet another shameful episode in a long list of failures to protect the UK environment\u201d— PAN UK (@PAN UK) 1674493039
"It's incredibly brazen to allow a banned bee-harming pesticide back into U.K. fields mere weeks after the government talked up the need for global ambition on reducing pesticides at the U.N. biodiversity talks in Montreal," Bell said in a statement issued by the Pesticide Collaboration, a progressive coalition of 83 health and environmental organizations, trade unions, farmer and consumer groups, and academics.
"This is the third consecutive year that the government has gone directly against the advice of its own scientific advisers with potentially devastating consequences for bees and other vital pollinators," said Bell. "The health of us all and the planet depends on their survival. The government must fulfill its duty to protect wildlife and keep pesticides off our crops for good—that means supporting farmers to find nature-friendly ways to control pests."
University of Sussex biology professor Dave Goulson has estimated that a single teaspoon of thiamethoxam—one of three neonicotinoids produced by Bayer, the German biotech corporation that merged with agrochemical giant Monsanto in 2018—is toxic enough to wipe out 1.25 billion bees.
A Greenpeace U.K. petition imploring Thérèse Coffey, a Conservative Party lawmaker serving as secretary of state for environment, food, and rural affairs, to "enforce a total ban on bee-killing pesticides" has garnered nearly one million signatures.
\u201cBREAKING: The government just approved the use of a BANNED bee-killing pesticide AGAIN! \n\nOne teaspoon of the pesticide is enough to kill 1.25 billion bees - it should be kept away from them!\n\u2060\nWho else thinks the government should listen to the science and NOT the sugar lobby?\u201d— Greenpeace UK (@Greenpeace UK) 1674577444
Describing DEFRA's move as "a huge disappointment," the Stand By Bees campaign on Tuesday urged supporters to "continue pushing" and "write to your local MP."
\u201cThis news is a huge disappointment for us. Despite our efforts, we have been unable to prevent this outcome. We must keep up the pressure. Now more than ever, we must #StandByBees. We must continue pushing. \n\nPlease write to your local MP: https://t.co/DgpLTfutVV\u201d— StandByBees (@StandByBees) 1674580286
In 2013, the European Commission banned the use of thiamethoxam and two other hazardous neonicotinoids produced by Monsanto—clothianidin and imidacloprid—on bee-attractive crops including maize, rapeseed, and some cereals. This was followed by a prohibition on all outdoor uses in 2018, which the European Court of Justice upheld in 2021, rejecting an appeal by Bayer.
The Pesticide Collaboration warned Monday that DEFRA's latest authorization for thiamethoxam-coated sugar beet seeds "raises wider concerns over whether the government will maintain existing restrictions on neonicotinoids and other harmful pesticides, or whether they may be overturned as part of a forthcoming bonfire of regulations that protect nature, wildlife, and communities."
At issue is the Retained E.U. Law Bill, which threatens to rescind E.U.-era environmental standards and other measures enacted prior to Brexit.
\u201cOur position on the Retained EU Law Bill \u2b07\ufe0f\n\n"The Pesticide Collaboration remains extremely concerned that if this Bill becomes law, there is a chance that all the EU-derived pesticide regulation with teeth will simply fall away."\n\nhttps://t.co/jw81ZS1gOz\u201d— The Pesticide Collaboration (@The Pesticide Collaboration) 1674470782
"It is inexcusable to see England falling so far behind the E.U. on regulations in place to prevent such a detrimental impact on biodiversity," Soil Association, a U.K.-based research and advocacy group, tweeted Tuesday. "It's not credible to claim an exemption is 'temporary' or 'emergency' when it is used year after year. How many more years will it happen?"
According to Amy Heley of the Pesticide Collaboration: "In previous years, DEFRA insisted that the sugar industry must make progress in finding alternatives, but we are yet to see any outcomes of this. The Pesticide Collaboration is deeply concerned that this emergency derogation is simply another example of the government failing to follow through on their own pledges to improve the environment and protect human health."
As Joan Edwards, director of policy & public affairs at the Wildlife Trusts, noted Monday: "Just last month, the Secretary of State Thérèse Coffey committed the U.K. to halving the environmental impact of damaging pesticides by 2030. However, today she has incompatibly authorized the use of a banned neonicotinoid, one of the world's most environmentally damaging pesticides."
“Only a few days ago, the E.U.'s highest court ruled that E.U. countries should no longer be allowed temporary exemptions for banned, bee-toxic neonicotinoid pesticides," said Edwards. "Yet this government deems it acceptable to allow the use of a toxic pesticide that is extremely harmful to bees and other insects, at a time when populations of our precious pollinators are already in freefall. This is unacceptable."
The Soil Association, meanwhile, argued that "if the government is serious about halting biodiversity loss by 2030, they must support farmers to explore long-term, agroecological solutions that don't threaten our endangered bee population."
"Neonicotinoids simply have no place in a sustainable farming system," the group added.
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