Agribusiness giant Monsanto is under fire for herbicide application instructions that some farmers consider to be impossible to properly follow.
Reuters this week detailed the 4,550-word label on the company's dicamba herbicide that's the subject of a civil lawsuit filed last month in Monsanto's native St. Louis. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved the label, but the farmers said the instructions were "unrealistic."
The instructions direct farmers to apply the weed killer only when winds are between 3 and 15 miles per hour. They must also spray at a maximum of two feet above crops, spray larger drops at high temperatures and rinse their equipment three times after use.
The instructions are necessary because the potent weed killer can turn into a vapor and be spread by wind beyond its intended crop fields. Monsanto, along with fellow agrichemical companies BASF and DuPont, also faces lawsuits from farmers alleging that wind-swept dicamba damaged crops that were not genetically modified to withstand it.
The chemical is banned in Arkansas and is under review by the EPA, and Reuters noted that restrictions on the herbicide could jeopardize Monsanto's Xtend line of soybeans.
A Monsanto spokesman said that the instructions, although lengthy, use "simple words and terms" and that crop damage was largely due to farmers that did not follow them.
"They are not complex in a fashion that inhibits the ability of making a correct application," vice president of strategy Scott Partridge told Reuters.