Over the weekend, a seven member jury awarded a Missouri peach farmer $265 million in a case against Bayer and BASF.  Bill Bader alleges the herbicide Dicamba ruined thousands of his trees back in 2015 and 2016, when the chemical drifted from a neighboring cotton field.

 

This marks the first Dicamba suit to do to trial.  However, according to the Wall Street Journal, there are about 35 other cases filed by farmers in Illinois, Arkansas, Missouri and other states, alleging that Bayer and BASF launched a new Dicamba-resistant soybean ahead of the EPA approving a new version of the herbicide.  The companies have largely attributed crop damage from Dicamba to farmers' own mismanagement. The EPA by the end of this year is expected to decide whether farmers can continue spraying the herbicide.

 

This comes as Bayer has lost three cases involving it’s Round-up weed killer.

 

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