There is little middle ground in the debate over how, or if, dicamba can be used by Arkansas farmers this summer, according to a review of more than 2,600 comments the state Plant Board has received on the matter.

"I write this letter to urge you to put tighter restrictions on dicamba," Ronald Tacker, a Crittenden County farmer, said in a handwritten letter. "Dicamba is not safe as you well know. ... I have made 45 crops and I have not seen damage like those made in the last three years from dicamba."

"I think that Arkansas farmers should have the same opportunity to control weeds in their crops as adjoining states. I think Arkansas should at least go along with the federal label," Allison Edger, who said she works in retail agriculture sales in St. Francis County, wrote, referring to a decision by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to allow dicamba's use, with some restrictions, through Oct. 31.

Hundreds of others who aren't directly involved in agriculture called for the Plant Board to take stricter measures -- including a ban on dicamba -- to protect backyard gardens, trees, shrubs and vegetation crucial to bees' ability to pollinate.

Many of those comments were initiated by two groups: Audubon Arkansas and the Freedom to Farm Foundation, an association of farmers who want to plant soybean varieties not genetically modified to be tolerant of dicamba and farmers with peanuts, vegetables and organic crops susceptible to the herbicide.

The Plant Board recommended in December that the herbicide be allowed for in-crop use through May 20, a decision that set forth a process that involved a 30-day period for public comment and the scheduling of a public hearing set to start at 9 a.m. Feb. 20 at the Embassy Suites hotel in Little Rock.

Farmers last season faced an April 15 cutoff on using dicamba on their emerged dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton.

The May 20 recommendation for this year was pushed by a majority of the Plant Board as a way to give farmers at least one opportunity to spray dicamba in summertime heat to combat pigweeds now resistant to other herbicides. Dicamba's detractors say higher temperatures and humidity increase dicamba's ability to "volatilize" as a vapor or gas hours or days after application and move off target.

If the board can't reach a decision, last season's April 15 cutoff date remains in effect this season.

The board received 2,647 comments -- by emails and letters sent by fax mail and through an online portal of the Arkansas Agriculture Department's website -- during a 30-day period that ended Feb. 5. The agriculture department, which is the umbrella agency for the board, posted a spreadsheet summary of all the comments on its website Tuesday.

Department staff members counted 2,248 comments against the May 20 cutoff date and 397 comments in favor of allowing farmers to spray at least until then. Two comments were placed in an "other," or noncommitted, category.

The May 20 cutoff date comes with two other restrictions:

• a 1-mile buffer, in all directions, from crops not tolerant of the herbicide, including organic and specialty crops, and from university and USDA research stations.

• a ban on mixing glyphosate, more commonly known as Roundup, with dicamba, a decision based on a UA weed scientist's testimony that such a mix makes dicamba more volatile.

Some farmers who want to spray dicamba say that date and restrictions, especially the 1-mile buffer, amount to a ban.

The EPA, in allowing dicamba's use through the 2020 growing season, also requires that anyone who sprays the herbicide be trained and certified. Last year, only supervisors of an application had to be trained and certified. The EPA also set 110-foot downwind buffers to susceptible crops and another 57-foot buffer between areas where there could be endangered species and plants.

In 2016, when there was no dicamba legal for in-crop use on dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton anywhere in the nation, the state received about three dozen complaints of damage to other crops. The board received 245 public comments that year when it weighed dicamba's future.

The board ultimately voted to allow Arkansas farmers to use BASF's Engenia dicamba throughout the 2017 growing season but then implemented a midseason emergency ban after receiving some 200 complaints of damage. The number of complaints ultimately topped 1,000, leading the board to prohibit dicamba's use after April 15 for the 2018 farm season.

The public-comment period in 2017 drew some 25,000 comments, although all but a couple of hundred were generic emails against Monsanto, which developed the dicamba-tolerant cotton and soybean seed and new dicamba formulations.

Bayer, which now owns Monsanto, said the Plant Board was right in extending dicamba's use deeper into the season. "At the same time, there is no evidence to support the three significant restrictions on the in-crop use of these products," Bayer said, referring to the board's proposed May 20 cutoff, the 1-mile buffer, and the ban on mixing glyphosate with dicamba.

"Nor are any of these restrictions consistent with EPA's assessment, the science, or the regulatory decisions of any other state," Bayer said in a 33-page submission that also included 409 pages of attachments. Bayer said the state should follow the EPA's label, as other states have done.

Bayer said Arkansas soybean farmers saw record yields in 2017 -- a year that, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, also logged high or record yields for many other crops in Arkansas and other states.

Bayer also disputes that dicamba has harmed vegetation crucial to bees' ability to pollinate. Bayer, like Monsanto before, said the new formulations of dicamba can be effective on weeds and safe for other crops if they're applied correctly.

Ford Baldwin, a crop consultant in Lonoke County and retired University of Arkansas weed scientist, wrote in a letter to the Plant Board that the solution for chemical manufacturers is develop a better form of dicamba.

"Until this happens, you [the Plant Board] simply must decide how much damage you are willing to tolerate and defend to the public for what there is to potentially gain," Baldwin wrote.

Business on 02/13/2019