ST. LOUIS – Monsanto and BASF Corp. face a federal lass action lawsuit alleging their products have caused crop losses on millions of acres of farmland across the U.S.
Several farmers filed the suit July 18 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri claiming the companies conspired to "set in motion" a chain of events that has destroyed crops in Scott, Stoddard, Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties.
According to the complaint, Monsanto released its Xtend brand cotton seeds in 2015 and Xtend soybeans in 2016 without an effective and safe herbicide to use for those crops. In 2017, BASF released their dicamba-based herbicides that are prone to drift. The suit further claims that crops grown using Xtend seeds are somewhat dicamba-tolerant, but crops from non-dicamba-tolerant seeds are vulnerable to damage caused by the herbicide.
Monsanto is an agrochemical giant based in St. Louis.
"Defendant Monsanto knew farmers would purchase and use other dicamba herbicides to spray on its Xtend crops and defendants encouraged farmers to do so, even though such spraying was not legal," the complaint states.
The farmers allege off-label dicamba spraying over Xtend seeds increased sales of the seeds and herbicides, creating a "modern-day agricultural protection racket."
The plaintiffs say thousands of farmers could be affected.
They are represented by attorneys at Gray, Ritter and Graham in St. Louis.