2,4-D—The Pesticide that Scares Even Conventional Farmers

One of the older her­bi­cides, 2,4-D is a pretty nasty chemical—it’s been linked to can­cer, neu­ro­tox­i­c­ity, kid­ney and liver prob­lems, repro­duc­tive effects, and shows endocrine dis­rupt­ing poten­tial—which is one of the many rea­sons farm­ers pre­fer the more “benign” glyphosate. In fact, on the basis of the sci­en­tific evi­dence, espe­cially related to human can­cers, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) peti­tioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sev­eral years ago to with­draw its approval for 2,4-D. Earlier this month, the peti­tion was sum­mar­ily denied.

So it’s inter­est­ing to see this new coalition’s oppo­si­tion to 2,4-D get­ting so much trac­tion so quickly. Perhaps it’s because the group—dubbed Save Our Crops—isn’t made up of envi­ron­men­tal­ists and sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture types, but rather Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic con­ven­tional farm­ers and large food proces­sors (and Organic Valley, the organic co-operative orga­ni­za­tion which is both a pro­ducer and a processor).

The basis of their con­cern isn’t so much the health effects, but the fact that their farms may end up as col­lat­eral dam­age from the increase in the use of 2,4-D that will occur if Dow’s seed is approved. After all, the use of glyphosate went through the roof once Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready seeds took over the mar­ket­place. These farm­ers expect 2,4-D to fol­low the same path. (Rodale News esti­mates a 60 to 80 per­cent increase.)

The prob­lem has to do with pes­ti­cide drift—an issue with many pes­ti­cides, but a par­tic­u­lar prob­lem with 2,4-D, which unlike glyphosate is highly volatile. While its volatil­ity was in one con­text con­sid­ered a strength, at this point even Dow itself acknowl­edges that it’s a con­cern. In an arti­cle on the bat­tle over the new seed’s approval, The New York Times offers an illus­tra­tion of what these farm­ers have to fear:

To Jody Herr, it was a tell­tale sign that one of his tomato fields had been poi­soned by 2,4-D, the pow­er­ful her­bi­cide that was an ingre­di­ent in Agent Orange, the Vietnam War defoliant.

“The leaves had curled and the plants were kind of twist­ing rather than grow­ing straight,” Mr. Herr said of the 2009 inci­dent on his veg­etable farm in Lowell, Ind. He is con­vinced the chem­i­cal, as well as another her­bi­cide called dicamba, had wafted through the air from farms nearly two miles away.

 Click here to read the rest of this arti­cle at Grist.org.