Grower Coalition Seeks to Protect use of Dicamba Stocks

A coalition of farm groups are urging the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reject the call to invalidate the EPA’s existing stock of dicamba.

The EPA recently defended its decision to allow farmers to continue to use existing stocks of three dicamba herbicides. Earlier this month, the court vacated the registrations for XtendiMax, FeXapan and Engenia.

The groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation and commodity organizations, have filed an amicus brief supporting EPA’s position.

“Neither a midseason cancellation nor a vacatur unplants a seed, retroactively tills a field, or clears a storehouse of products purchased for lawful use under the prior registration,” the coalition said in a statement.

The coalition said immediately banning use of existing stocks of would financially devastate America’s soybean and cotton growers, who have invested an estimated $4.28 billion in seed and hundreds of millions on herbicides.

The coalition said an estimated 64 million acres of dicamba-tolerant seed is already in the ground.

Without dicamba, the groups report that expected yield loss for soy and cotton could reach 50 percent.

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