A southwest Missouri farmer is accusing Monsanto of false statements about the qualities of herbicide products that contain dicamba formulations.

Gregory Harris of Golden City says in a federal lawsuit that the herbicide drifted on his approximately 400 acres of soybeans. He says in the court document that 354 acres were planted with non-dicamba

resistant soybeans.

Harris' lawyer says, "On or about August 2, 2017, damage was initially observed on Harris’ soybeans. (e.g., curling of leaves)."

The lawyer writes that the total dollar value of damage is not known.

The herbicide has made headlines in the last year for a phenomenon known across the Midwest as "dicamba drift." Many farmers say the chemical has wafted onto their fields, damaging crops that are not genetically modified to withstand it.

Monsanto, one of the largest agribusiness companies in America, recently sued Arkansas regulators for banning its version of the herbicide, XtendiMax. The corporate giant asked a state judge to bar the Arkansas Plant Board from enforcing its prohibition of the product.

The plant board referred questions about the lawsuit to the state Agriculture Department. A spokeswoman for the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The plant board adopted the ban last November, preventing XtendiMax from being used each year from April 15 through September 15. The state later approved a temporary restriction that extended to other dicamba weed killers. And last month, the panel nixed a petition from Monsanto to let its herbicide be used in the state.

Harris' lawsuit targets these products, "Monsanto’s Roundup Ready 2 Xtend Soybeans (“Xtend soybeans”)4 and Bollgard II XtendFlex cotton (“XtendFlex cotton”) (together, “Xtend products”), which are utilized in conjunction with the Defendants’ dicamba herbicides

(Monsanto’s XtendiMax® Herbicide with VaporGrip® Technology (“XtendiMax”), BASF’s Engenia herbicide (“Engenia”) and DuPont’s FeXapanTM herbicide Plus VaporGrip®."

Harris's lawsuit says Monsanto released the products, "Despite warnings from farmers and industry experts." The lawyer says, "In 2016 in Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas, there were at least 27, 44, and 26 filed complaints (respectively)."

Some growers have hailed dicamba as a useful tool. Brent Schorfheide, a farmer in southern Illinois, told The New York Times last month that the chemical got rid of weeds that had become resistant to Roundup, another Monsanto weed-killing product.

“It cleaned everything up,” Schorfheide told The Times. “Without it, our fields would be a disaster.”

Click the link on the right side of this webpage to read Harris' complaint.