PA ImagesA farmer has been handed some $265 million (£204 million) from two chemical corporations after weedkiller drifted onto his farm and damaged his trees.
Bill Bader, owner of the biggest peach farm in Missouri, said German chemical firms Bayer and BASF encouraged his neighbours to use their dicamba weedkiller irresponsibly, causing ‘irreparable’ damage to his property.
The farms on either side of Bader’s land had been using dicamba-resistant seeds, by another company called Monsanto, also owned by Bayer, which meant they survived but his trees did not.
PA ImagesFollowing a court case, jurors agreed with Bader, in that Bayer and BASF had worked in a conspiracy to promote dicamba and its dicamba-resistant seeds.
During the trial, the court was shown evidence the firms already knew its chemicals could drift onto other farms, and therefore anticipated increased sales because of ‘defensive planting’ by farmers without resistant seeds, as the St Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
Bader’s attorney, Billy Randles, said:
It was part of the plan the whole time. They mapped out the number of people they were going to hurt, and put it out anyway.
As a result, Bader was handed $15 million (£11.5 million) in compensation, with the firms paying out a further $250 million (£192 million) in punitive damages.
This particular case could be just the beginning of a series of big payouts for the companies, as Bader’s case is the first of almost 140 lawsuits against Bayer and BASF.
Both firms have said they will appeal the ruling, claiming Bader’s plants were damaged by root fungus and hailstorms, not the weedkiller.
PA ImagesDicamba weedkiller has been on the market for years, however sales hugely increased when Monsanto was bought by German company Bayer in 2018, and seeds that can resist the weedkiller were introduced.
However, the product was accused of polluting around 4% of soybean fields in the US in 2017. Many people have complained the herbicide spreads into nearby areas, which can be hugely damaging to businesses.
This particular lawsuit comes after Bayer was forced to pay $290 million (£223 million) for failing to warn a dying groundskeeper that Roundup, another herbicide, could cause cancer.
Earlier this year, it was claimed the firm may be forced to stump up $10 billion in a settlement with tens of thousands of people with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the US.
The plaintiff’s claim they developed the illness after being exposed to glyphosate, which is a key ingredient in Roundup.
Bayer maintains its products are safe for crops, as long as farmers follow instructions.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.