There’s precedent for the EPA to allow farmers to use existing dicamba stocks after a federal court vacated the registration of dicamba products.
American Farm Bureau’s John Walt Boatright says an earlier EPA existing stocks order gives AFBF hope the agency will again greenlight such use of dicamba on soybeans and cotton. He says, “Back in 2020, a court also handed down a vacature of certain dicamba products, and EPA released an existing stocks order within, I believe, five or six days.”
AFBF President Zippy Duvall and American Soybean Association officials wrote EPA recently urging it to issue an existing dicamba stocks order for the upcoming planting season.
That, after a federal court in Arizona vacated registration of three dicamba products, critical in fighting resistant weeds. Boatright says, “It’s critical for our farmers and ranchers around the country who utilize this, and expected, made purchasing decisions and business decisions, based on the fact that they would have dicamba ready to go.”
And many farmers spent millions of dollars, some of it borrowed, on dicamba and resistant seeds. Boatright adds, “That’s the real problem here, is that folks have already made business decisions, and now potentially to be able to not use that product, is going to be a major, major issue.”
The court vacated the registrations for XtendiMax, Enginia and Tavium, ruling EPA failed to offer a required public notice and comment period before issuing the 2020 registrations.
