Court allows dicamba use through July

A federal court has ruled that farmers will be able to use the rest of their dicamba herbicides through the end of July, after which the products will be illegal.

The decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a win for the EPA, which decided on the timeline to phase out several dicamba products after the court moved to outlaw them. The herbicides are made by Bayer, BASF and Corteva.

A petition from the original plaintiffs, which included the Center for Food Safety and others, had requested that the court overrule the EPA’s decision and immediately ban the products. The American Soybean Association supported the court’s decision to allow use to continue.

The news came shortly before Bayer agreed to settle a huge round of lawsuits over its glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide. The $10.9 billion settlement covers the bulk of the current litigation as well as potential future litigation.