EPA releases new regulations for use of controversial herbicide
Alan Riquelmy
(CN) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday announced a set of rules for the use of over-the-top dicamba, an herbicide said to be critical in battling resistant weeds in crops.
The EPA in a statement said it had established stringent protections for applying the herbicide on dicamba-tolerant cotton and soybean crops. Its decision, in effect for the next two growing seasons, stemmed from farmers, especially those in the Cotton Belt, who have emphasized the challenges they face without the tool.
Friday’s announcement came two years after a federal judge vacated 2020 registrations for three dicamba products.
Dicamba has been used as a pesticide for over 50 years, though over-the-top applications have only occurred since 2016. It’s used to control weeds in several food and feed crops. Some dicamba products can be sprayed over-the-top of genetically engineered soybeans and cotton once they’ve sprouted.
According to the EPA, farmers have said over-the-top dicamba is needed to combat weeds like Palmer amaranth, which has become almost impossible to fight with other herbicides. Those weeds can grow 3 inches a day and lay waste to fields.
New restrictions include cutting its application rate by half. The 2020 rules allowed up to four applications of a half-pound per acre, with only two of those being over-the-top. That meant a farmer could apply a total of 2 pounds each year.
The new rules state that only two applications of a half-pound per acre may occur annually, for a total of a pound each year. The EPA said that will reduce the amount of dicamba and limit exposure to sensitive species.
Additionally, dicamba users must double the amount of volatility reduction agents added to every application. That will greatly reduce the possibility the dicamba will turn into vapor after it’s applied and then drift off its target, one of the main ways it can damage the environment.
The EPA said it’s imposed these measures to reduce drift, minimize volatility and protect ecosystems.
But the Center for Biological Diversity blasted the EPA’s decision, pointing to drift as a significant danger of dicamba.
The center said since 2016, dicamba drift has damaged millions of farmland acreage and ravaged orchards, home gardens and trees. It feared the approval announced Friday offers fewer protections than those offered in the past.
“The industry cronies at the EPA just approved a pesticide that drifts away from application sites for miles and poisons everything it touches,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the center, in a statement. “With the EPA taking aggressive pro-pesticide industry actions like this, it’s hard to see how Making America Healthy Again was anything but another broken campaign promise. When push comes to shove, this administration is willing to bend over backward to appease the pesticide industry, regardless of the consequences to public health or the environment.”
The EPA said that its new rules reflect President Donald Trump’s commitment to the nation’s farmers and rural areas, as those farmers have clamored for over-the-top dicamba use.
However, the center characterized the new rules as hostility toward farmers by the Trump administration. It said the new standard will allow year-round use, instead of a proposed cutoff on June 12. Additionally, time-of-day restrictions to reduce volatility were discarded.
“Dicamba drift damage threatens farmers’ livelihoods and tears apart rural communities,” said Bill Freese, science director at the Center for Food Safety, in a statement. “And these are farmers and communities already reeling from Trump’s ICE raids on farmworkers, the trade war shutdown of soybean exports to China, and Trump’s bailout of Argentina, whose farmers are selling soybeans to the Chinese — soybeans China used to buy from American growers.”