Is a Pro-Ag State like Missouri really going to side with the World Health Organization over the Trump administration, family farmers, and actual science?
If I had to guess, nearly all 197 lawmakers heading to Jefferson City for legislative session would agree with this statement: We need to protect and bolster Missouri’s family farms and the farm economy. There are many different policies to consider and ways to tackle this. But what would be one of the most impactful today, from the family farmer’s perspective? The Missouri legislature needs to close the legal loophole concerning critical pesticide technologies.
If you’re not familiar with the issue, it’s politically known around the Capitol as the “failure-to-warn” bill, centered around a widely used pesticide called glyphosate, or Roundup, manufactured by the St. Louis business, Bayer Crop Science.
To sell this product, the product manufacturer must register the product through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). If the product is deemed to be safe for use through the registration process, the agency issues a federal label to be placed on the product that gives direct instruction on its use. Manufacturers are not legally allowed to deviate from the EPA approved label. But what is occurring is companies are following federal law appropriately and are being sued for doing so.
The World Health Organization (WHO)—through their cancer research arm known as the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)—deemed this product to be “probably carcinogenic to humans.” It should be noted IARC classified it as a “Group 2A,” which is a list of what they deem to be “probable carcinogens” and includes the consumption of red meat, hot beverages like coffee, and being a hairdresser.
Regardless, this finding is contrary to the EPA’s finding, along with nearly all other regulatory bodies around the globe. On their official website the EPA states, “EPA considered a significantly more extensive and relevant dataset than the International Agency on the Research for Cancer (IARC).” In February of 2020, they again found there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label.
So, what’s the issue? Plaintiffs claimed they were harmed by their use of this product and are using IARCs finding as the basis of their claim. Some courts and juries, be it a minority as more cases have been won by product manufacturers than lost, are awarding major payouts since the product manufacturer “failed to warn” that the product might cause cancer.
So why don’t the companies just place a label on the product saying, “This product might cause cancer?” Because the EPA will not approve a label with unscientific claims like that, thus causing a de facto ban on farmers having access to the technology. This was evidenced when EPA issued a letter in 2019 stating they would not approve a label for a glyphosate with a warning on it. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California issued a preliminary injunction enjoining California from enforcing the state warning requirements involving glyphosate’s carcinogenicity, based on the fact the required warning statement is false and misleading.
The time is now to enact common sense measures that protect Missouri farm families having access to these critical technologies. Farmers have relied on glyphosate for weed control since 1974, and for the past few decades’ glyphosate has played an integral role in regenerative agriculture and conservation practices. The use of effective herbicides like glyphosate allows producers to adequately control yield-compromising weed pressure, vastly decrease carbon emissions, all while preventing erosion and enhancing overall soil health. Unfortunately, this product may no longer be available to Missouri family farmers due to frivolous lawsuits. Simply put, without access to these crop protection tools, food prices skyrocket, consumers suffer, global competitors gain market share, and Missouri family farms go out of business.
The Missouri Soybean Association (MSA) agrees with President Trump and the Solicitor General that federal law preempts these egregious lawsuits. Missouri lawmakers need to close this legal loophole and stop the increased costs on farmer inputs for an extensively tested and viable product. My question to the Missouri legislature is this; is a Pro-Trump, Pro-Ag State like Missouri really going to side with the World Health Organization over the Trump administration, family farmers, and actual science?
Casey Wasser is the is the CEO and Executive Director of the Missouri Soybean Association
