Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism (http://www.iowawatch.org/tag/monsanto/)
Briana Reha-Klenske starts helping migrant farmworkers lacking insurance who need medical care by asking: for how long are you in Iowa? A bilingual health care manager, her patients are migrant farmworkers who are only in Iowa during the summers, which limits her ability to help.
Last year, according to a University of Missouri survey, dicamba damaged an estimated 3.6 million acres of soybeans across 25 states when it drifted from farms planted with seeds genetically engineered to resist the chemical onto regular soybean fields.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lessened protections for crops and wildlife habitats after Monsanto supplied research that presented lower estimates of how far the weed killer dicamba can drift, according to a review of federal documents. In its final report approving the usage of dicamba on soybeans, the agency expressed confidence that dicamba, new versions of which are made by Monsanto and German chemical company BASF, would not leave the field. The registration covered both herbicides, an EPA spokesperson said. “The EPA expects that exposure will remain confined to the dicamba (DGA) treated field,” the agency wrote in the final registration approving the use of dicamba in November 2016. However, drift from dicamba damaged more than 3.6 million acres of soybeans in 2017, according to data from Kevin Bradley, a professor at the University of Missouri.
After drift from the herbicide dicamba harmed millions of acres of soybeans in 2017, environmental groups are worried that it could damage sensitive ecological areas, particularly habitats for monarch butterflies.
Just nine of 30 agribusiness companies have followed through on a pledge to implement the Farm Bureau’s 2014 “Core Principles” for transparency in the collection of farmers’ data. Among those who have yet to do so are some of the industry’s biggest players.
As soybean and cotton farmers across the Midwest and South continue to see their crops ravaged from the weed killer dicamba, new complaints have pointed to the herbicide as a factor in widespread damage to oak trees.
With morning temperatures approaching 90 degrees one day in July 2015, a migrant laborer walking down rows of corn began to experience symptoms of heat exhaustion, including difficulty breathing and extreme nausea. The laborer was working near Boone, Iowa, for an independent contractor with the St. Louis-based Monsanto Co.
Some farmers applying pesticides to fields this summer might ignore symptoms of being exposed to the chemicals, like headaches or nausea. But mounting evidence shows chronic exposure to pesticides may increase risks for certain cancers, like prostate cancer, and for other chronic illnesses, like Parkinson’s and thyroid disease.
Although agriculture is a $31 billion industry in Iowa, it’s a topic absent from this election season’s share of presidential stump speeches. That’s not all too surprising, though. Instead of getting involved in presidential elections, major agribusinesses have historically chosen to pump their money into congressional races.
St. Louis-based seed company Monsanto has spearheaded a push for seed biotechnology, a Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting analysis of the USDA data found for this report.