Monsanto Co. filed suit Oct. 20 in Pulasky County Circuit Court seeking to block the Arkansas State Plant Board from prohibiting use of dicamba herbicides next summer.
The latest salvo comes after the Plant Board at its Sept. 21 meeting proposed prohibiting all over-the-top dicamba applications between April 16 and Oct. 31, 2018, to crops that have been genetically modified to tolerate the herbicide. The crops are marketed as Xtend soybeans and XtendFlex cotton, both developed by Monsanto.
The proposed application ban covers Engenia herbicide from BASF, XtendiMax with VaporGrip technology from Monsanto and FeXapan with VaporGrip technology from DuPont.
The Plant Board plans to hold a public hearing on the proposal Nov. 8 at the Embassy Suites in Little Rock. Deadline to submit written comments is Oct. 30.
The court case is Monsanto Company v Arkansas State Plant Board et al, Circuit Court of Pulaski County, Arkansas, No. CV-17-5964.
The suit names 21 defendants, including the Arkansas Plant Board and Dr. Rick Cartwright, associate vice president for agriculture – Extension, and director of Cooperative Extension Service. In court documents, Monsanto says it filed the complaint against the Plant Board “for their unconstitutional and ultra vires, arbitrary, capricious and otherwise unlawful acts not based on substantial evidence in regulating certain pesticides within the state of Arkansas.”
The company seeks to prevent the Plant Board from continuing to regulate the use of Monsanto’s XtendiMax with VaporGrip technology in a way that violates the Arkansas Administrative Procedures Act and the Arkansas Pesticide Use and Application Act, deprives Monsanto of its protected property interests guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, according to court documents.
Read the full text of the 27-page complaint filed by Monsanto by clicking here.