BASF, Bayer held liable for dicamba damage
Melody M. Bomgardner · C&EN Global Enterprise · 2020
A federal jury in the Eastern District of Missouri has awarded Bader Farms $265 million in damages in a lawsuit accusing BASF and Bayer of marketing a defective crop system that caused dicamba sprayed nearby to damage the farm’s peach trees. Of the award, $15 million is for compensatory damages; the remainder is punitive. In 2015, Monsanto—now owned by Bayer—released its Xtend Crop System cotton and soybean seeds, which are genetically modified to be tolerant to dicamba herbicide. Monsanto and BASF developed versions of dicamba intended to minimize its tendency to drift but had yet to win approval to market them. The suit alleges that local farmers who bought the seeds sprayed their crops with existing versions of the chemical to kill weeds resistant to glyphosate herbicide. Dicamba, the suit says, drifted to the peach farm and damaged trees, resulting in a decline in the farm’s revenue. “Monsanto pushed its