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ASA ‘steps up urgency’ in search for dicamba answers

The American Soybean Association (ASA) says the need to find answers on the issue of dicamba damage is becoming more urgent.

ASA president Ron Moore says ASA “is committed to establishing both a cause and a path forward on the dicamba issue”. And he says they strongly support independent research on dicamba taking place at land grant universities.

“We want to make certain that the land grant universities that are widespread across the U.S. have ability to do the research for their particular states—for their climates—to validate some of the things that the companies have said that their technology will do,” Moore says.

The technology providers—the companies that have developed and are marketing the new dicamba herbicides—need to cooperate with those university researchers, Moore says.

“The information I’ve gotten from the trait providers is that they’re willing to look at some of these things and provide some information that the land grant university researchers can utilize,” he says. “There’s been accusations that they weren’t allowing some of the people to do research, but from what I’ve been able gather, they’re allowing some of these things to happen now.”

Moore says farmers need and want new technologies, but companies and independent researchers need to work together to ensure the products can be used safely.

In past interviews, Monsanto has told Brownfield it didn’t have universities test its dicamba product Xtendimax right before launch because it wasn’t feasible and it had already been thoroughly tested by Monsanto.  Monsanto confirms it IS meeting with academic weed scientists this week to discuss dicamba issues, as promised this summer. 

AUDIO: Ron Moore