Monsanto Asks Trump EPA to OK Drift-prone Pesticide on 90 Million Acres of CornThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today it will consider allowing the highly drift-prone pesticide dicamba to be sprayed on up to 90 million acres of corn.
Dicamba is produced by Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer. Drift from dicamba sprayed on cotton and soybean fields has damaged an estimated 5 million acres of crops, trees and backyard gardens over the past three years. That has prompted several states to restrict its use.
“Use of this dangerous, uncontrollable toxin should be banned, not expanded,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “With millions of acres of crops, orchards and natural areas already harmed by this volatile herbicide, Trump’s EPA should reject Monsanto’s self-serving request to dramatically escalate its use.”
Highly toxic dicamba products are designed for use primarily on crops genetically engineered to resist what would normally be a fatal dose of the pesticide. The EPA has already approved dicamba for use on genetically engineered soybean and cotton crops.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto- ... rn/5672224deserves a mention in the wildlife thread as well.
Dicamba use also poses a significant threat to imperiled wildlife. A 2018 Center report found that more than 60 million acres of monarch butterfly habitat are projected to be sprayed with dicamba by next year. And today’s proposal to expand the use of dicamba to corn would expand the acreage of monarch habitat sprayed.
Capitalism will kill us all.