EPA just tossed farmers a lifeline to protect crops

Their names almost make them sound like the villains in an old John Wayne movie: Palmer Amaranth, Tall Waterhemp, and Giant Ragweed. In reality, they’re among the worst invaders in a farmer’s soybean fields — prolific weeds that rob our food crops of moisture and nutrients, depress our yields, and resist many forms of herbicide. To fight them, we need the best technology available — and on Oct. 31, the Environmental Protection Agency tossed us a lifeline. Regulators extended for two years our ability to use a form of a soybean that resists dicamba, a traditional crop-protection product that helps us defeat these terrible weeds. Last year, farmers planted about 25 million acres of dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton. This year, that figure topped 50 million acres, in a compelling testament to the power and effectiveness of these crops...MORE