Love thy neighbor farmer

Love thy neighbor farmer.  By not spraying the old version of dicamba on your fields.  The old stuff drifts.  Your neighbors crops die.  Not neighborly.

Farmers in southern U.S. states have long battled weeds and destructive bugs.  This year farmers  face a new threat: their neighbors.

Farmers  say some neighbor  growers are illegally spraying a powerful herbicide that is damaging hundreds of thousands of crop acres in Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee.  And, this is a  trend that regulators, farmers and academics link to Monsanto Co.’s introduction this year of a new variety of genetically modified soybean.

Where things went wrong occurred when Monsanto sold farmers new seeds without providing an updated version of the herbicide dicamba that is designed to not drift.  Monsanto — innovative and speedy — were too fast on the draw.

Neighboring farmers spray the old form of Monsanto’s herbicide dicamba and — unfortunately — the herbicide drifts over to land using the new biotech soybeans which die when they get a whiff of the herbicide.

The EPA says its investigating dicamba misuse and crop damage and its findings would “inform”its final decision on approving Monsanto’s new version of the herbicide.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/farmers-illegal-use-of-herbicide-takes-toll-on-neighboring-crops-1470130201

Aptos Psychologist:  Time for every farmer harmed to send Monsanto a ‘love thy neighbor farmer’ card and seek damages from  Monsanto for stupidity. And then go organic so no bad herbicides floating around.    #AptosCommunityGarden