Dicamba in doubt for 2025 - Legal review delays availability

May 20, 2024

By Farms.com

The use of dicamba, a weedkiller widely used by farmers, remains uncertain for the 2025 growing season. A recent court decision challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) approval process for dicamba, requiring a new registration application. While farmers can use existing dicamba stocks in 2024, the new application faces a lengthy EPA review, making widespread use in 2025 unlikely.

The legal issues center on how the EPA reviewed registrations in 2020. Environmental groups argue the process didn't adequately assess potential risks to the environment. With the new application possibly taking over a year for approval, it could exceed the growing season timeframe.

A faster decision by the EPA is a possibility but could trigger further lawsuits. The ongoing legal battles focused on environmental regulations will ultimately determine if dicamba remains available for weed control in 2025.

"The court said that the manufacturer needed to pursue a new-use registration," said Brigit Rollins, a staff attorney for the National Agricultural Law Center, regarding the new registration process. "Bayer probably saw the R170 additional food use as the best fit as a new-use registration, but they might have a completely different reason."

The R170 designation refers to a specific type of registration required by the EPA for the proposed new use of dicamba. This designation comes with a lengthy review period, potentially exceeding 17 months.

The court order allows farmers to use existing stocks of dicamba herbicides in 2024. These products must be used according to the label instructions.

Dicamba has been a controversial herbicide due to concerns about its tendency to drift from target areas. The recent legal challenges highlight the ongoing debate about balancing agricultural needs with environmental protection.

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators