2,4-D is a toxic herbicide associated with serious health risks. These GMO crops will also, like their predecessors, lead to much greater use of even more dangerous chemicals, the development of more herbicide-resistant weeds, destruction and genetic contamination of neighboring crops, and severe economic impacts on other farmers.

I encourage the U.S. Department of Agriculture to do a thorough environmental review of new genetically engineered seeds resistant to 2,4- dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) before deregulating these crops and allowing them to go to market without ANY government oversight.

The USDA is poised to allow farmers to plant 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) resistant corn and soy. This would allow farmers to plant these crops wherever they please without any government oversight, disregarding the harms they will cause.

2,4-D is a toxic herbicide associated with serious health impacts. Dow AgroScience created these 2,4-D resistant crops so farmers could spray the herbicide without killing their corn and soy. But when the same herbicide is sprayed on a field repeatedly, a few naturally resistant weeds survive, reproduce and eventually take over. Because farmers did this with Monsanto’s Roundup-resistant crops, fields across the U.S. are now choked with Roundup-resistant weeds.

Industry’s solution is to genetically engineer crops to resist a different, more toxic herbicide, to kill those resistant weeds but not the crops.

But make no mistake, these GMO crops will, like their predecessors, lead to much greater use of even more dangerous chemicals, the development of more herbicide-resistant weeds, destruction and genetic contamination of neighboring crops, and severe economic impacts on other farmers. USDA projects approval of these crops will result in an up to 600 percent increase in 2,4-D use on crops, to as much as 176 million pounds per year, while independent scientists believe much greater increases are likely. Drifting 2,4-D already causes more crop injury events to neighboring farms than any other herbicide.

Please tell the USDA to deny approval use of these crops.