Arkansas Monsanto Dicamba Crop System Class Action

In trying to keep up with developments and avoid crop damage, farmers in Arkansas, it seems, have been taken for an unprofitable roller-coaster ride. The story centers on a herbicide called dicamba and its ability to destroy weeds—as well as surrounding crops.

The class for this action includes all persons or entities who suffered damage through the purchase of dicamba or dicamba-tolerant seeds, or who modified their equipment to apply dicamba, due to the defective design, development, marketing, and sale of dicamba.

Monsanto developed a crop system built around the herbicide dicamba and dicamba-tolerant crops, in partnership with BASF. According to the complaint for this class action, dicamba was used with dicamba-tolerant crops in the 2016 growing season. However, because of dicamba’s volatility, the complaint claims, it caused significant damage to nearby soybeans and other crops that were not dicamba-tolerant.

In self-defense, the complaint claims, some farmers purchased dicamba-tolerant seeds for crops for the 2017 growing season. According to the complaint, they were charged an extra “tech fee” of about $10 an acre, but they were also offered a rebate for the use of the seeds plus dicamba during that season. In order to use the dicamba, the complaint says, equipment used to apply herbicides had to be modified at some expense.

However, once again, the complaint alleges, the use of dicamba during the 2017 growing season caused damage to surrounding crops, so that dicamba is now being removed from the market by the Arkansas State Plant Board. According to the complaint, farmers can no longer use dicamba, so that they will have no appropriate herbicide for their dicamba-tolerant plants, will suffer reduced yields, will not realize the rebate they were offered when purchasing the seeds, and will have modified their equipment for nothing.

The plaintiffs in this case include farmers raising soybeans and other crops plus an applicator of herbicides, and they allege that the design of the crop system was defective, since dicamba was unreasonably dangerous. They claim that Monsanto and BASF should have seen that the volatility of dicamba and known that it would not be suitable for use because of damage to other crops. They claim they suffered damage first from having to protect themselves from the use of dicamba and now from the discontinuance of dicamba because of its “unreasonably dangerous defective condition.”

Because Monsanto and BASF should have known about the defects of dicamba, the complaint claims, the companies have violated laws regarding product liability, implied warranty, negligence, and so on, and should be charged for punitive damages. 

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Agriculture, Damage to crops