Hearing completed on Rone dicamba bill

A public hearing was held Tuesday for a bill proposed state Rep. Don Rone aimed at increasing penalties for the misuse of the herbicide dicamba, as oversight officials detail the potential costs of the measure.

HB 662 is one of three dicamba-related proposals introduced by Rone, R-Portageville, but it as the first one to be passed on to a committee hearing.

The proposals by Rone follow the widespread damage from the alleged misuse of the volatile herbicide dicamba, as farmers reported damage to thousands of acres of land after the herbicide was reportedly applied illegally on dicamba-resistant plants nearby.

Dicamba is known for its high volatility and tendency to drift, especially when applied illegally. Farmers say the illegal applications led to damage to thousands of acres of crops across the region.

HB662 would raise fines from $1,000 per field to $1,000 per acre, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The fines would be assessed by the Department of Agriculture (AGR), and those found to be a “chronic violator” will be fined $2,000 per acre.

Those fined by the AGR would also be liable for any “reasonable costs associated with the department’s testing of fields or personal property affected by the herbicide use,” according to a description by the Committee on Legislative Research.

All fines collected by the AGR would be given to the school district where the violation occurred. The AGR also has authority to suspend or revoke licenses, permits or certifications issued to the violator under the Missouri Pesticides Use Act.

Officials at AGR say the measure will cost the state $299,620 in the 2017 fiscal year. Costs include those needed to classify all state registered pesticides, requiring 6,000 hours of research, plus additional enforcement hearings and updates to the MOPlants computer system.

The measure is also expected to cost the state $102,500 in fiscal year 2019 and $105,063 in fiscal year 2020.

In December, Rone urged farmers to heed what’s written on the label of the products their using. He said the labels are “strenuous,” and if his bill passes, so too will be the penalties for their illegal use.

“They don’t need to be aware of it, they’ve got to do it,” Rone said in December. “That’s the law. That’s not being aware of it. That’s the law. What that label reads is the law. You cannot spray this compound in winds greater than 10 miles per hour. You cannot spray it if there are susceptible crops down wind. It’s very, very, very strenuous.”

Rone has read two other dicamba related bills before the House, HB 605 and HB 606. HB 605 would task the AGR with review each herbicide to determine if it’s an “inherently volatile herbicide (IVH). HB 606 would halt the sale of a herbicide-resistant seed if it’s sold without a corresponding herbicide.

Both bills have been read twice before the House, but neither has moved forward.

Rone’s proposals follow more than a year of outcry by local and regional farmers, including Bill Bader of Bader Farms, the state’s largest peach producer based in Campbell. Bader and his company filed lawsuit against Monsanto, alleging the world’s largest seed company of knowingly marketing its Xtend cotton and soybean seeds without selling an accompanying safe herbicide.

The Environmental Protection Agency approved the seeds before the 2016 growing season, but the accompanying dicamba formulation wasn’t approved until November. Farmers reportedly opted to illegally spray the older version of dicamba, which drifted to neighboring crops causing widespread damage.

Bader Farms reported damage to thousands of trees, resulting in a gross loss of $1.5 million in sales in 2015. In 2016, the peace grower reported losing over 30,000 trees across hundreds of acres.

Monsanto argues that the responsibility of the illegal use should be placed solely on those who performed the illegal spraying. The case was recently moved to federal court, but Bader’s lawyers are looking to moving the case back to state court.