Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced that the EPA is approving five-year registrations for two dicamba products and extending the registration of an additional dicamba product. All three registrations include new control measures to ensure the products can be effectively used while protecting the environment, animals and other crops not tolerant to dicamba.
Two of those new registrations were over-the-top products – XtendiMax with VaporGrip Technology and Engenia Herbicide – and the extension was on over-the-top product Tavium Plus VaporGrip Technology. Registrations on those three products will expire in 2025.
“Farmers now have the certainty they need to make plans for their 2021 growing season,” Wheeler said in a statement. “After reviewing substantial amounts of new information, conducting scientific assessments based on the best-available science, and carefully considering input from stakeholders we have reached a resolution that is good for our farmers and our environment.”
In 2018 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down registration of dicamba products, saying that the EPA substantially understated some of the health risks associated to dicamba use. Earlier that year the International Journal of Epidemiology linked dicamba to increased rates of liver and bile duct cancer.
States can still impose their own restrictions on the herbicide but have to do so by working with the EPA and filing appropriate requests.
On Oct. 29, Congressman Jeff Fortenberry issued a statement approving the EPA's move.
“We have been working on a resolution to dicamba for farmers for many months now. I am pleased that the Environmental Protection Agency has reached a reasonable conclusion,” the statement said. “Earlier this year, I worked with the EPA Administrator, the Secretary of Agriculture, and several bipartisan colleagues to ensure that ag producers who had purchased dicamba could continue using it through the end of July.
“I am pleased that farmers will now have certainty as they begin making their planting decisions for the coming year.”
Fortenberry is the Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration.
The EPA's new registrations feature control measures for managing off-site dicamba movement. There's now requirement for approval of pH-buffering agent be mixed with over-the-top dicamba products prior to applications. It also requires downwind buffer of 240 feet and 310 feet in areas where endangered species listed are located. It prohibits over-the-top application of dicamba on soybeans after June 30 and cotton after July 30. And labels must simplify so growers can easily determine when and how to properly apply dicamba.
