雷春译文：《华尔街日报》除草剂禁令

雷春译文：《华尔街日报》除草剂禁令

阿肯色州禁止使用Dicamba除草剂

指责损坏临近农场的作物

作者：Jacob Bunge

发表日期：2017年7月11日

翻译：雷春

雷春评论：草甘膦是目前所有除草剂中对人的危害最低的一个，作为这个行业的专业人士，我对抗草甘膦转基因农作物的谨慎态度是因为草甘膦的大面积使用：1. 会导致一些物种的灭绝；2. 作物的品种单一可能使某种病毒诱发大面积农作物的毁灭，危及粮食生产；3. 目前已经证明，一些杂草会通过自然选择而对草甘膦产生抗性，后果是，商家不得不进一步开发新产品，导致毒害更大、或者致癌风险更高的除草剂的大量使用。抗虫、抗病、抗旱、增产、加营养成分或药性等的转基因农作物是安全有益的，但转抗除草剂基因的作物需要严格、规范管理。

 

译文如下：

有几百个农场报道农作物受到Dicamba除草剂的损害后，阿肯色、田纳西、密苏里和密西西比州相继采取了限制和罚款措施。

美国南部越来越多的农场主向农业部和种植署投诉强力除草剂Dicamba对农作物的损害。

 

美国阿肯色、田纳西、密苏里和密西西比州，有几百个农场报道农作物受到Dicamba除草剂的损害。这种除草剂损害导致的低产，对于近年承受农产品低价压力的农场主来说，更是雪上加霜。

这种除草剂长久以来一直用于大面积清除杂草。近年，新的配方使这种强力除草剂越来越广泛地应用于孟山都公司转抗Dicamba除草剂基因的大豆和棉花作物种植中。位于圣路易斯的这家公司六月份估计，今年有2千万英亩新型转基因大豆种子售给了农场，而去年仅限售了1百万英亩的种子。

美国农业工业近年来一直在期望，新的转基因农作物以及类似于Dicamba的除草剂的共同开发，能够代替世界上最为广泛使用的除草剂草甘膦及抗草甘膦转基因作物，因为越来越多的杂草对草甘膦产生了抗性。在过去的二十多年中，由于孟山都、杜邦和Syn­genta AG公司抗草甘膦转基因种子的大量开发和生产，草甘膦除草剂的使用得到蓬勃发展。这使得抗草甘膦的杂草通过自然选择而泛滥开来，如果不及时处理，会淹没农作物并对农业机械造成破坏–进一步降低原本就薄利的农场的利润。

但是，受害的农场主说，临近农场在为新转基因作物喷洒Dicamba除草剂时，这种除草剂飘到附近没有种植这种新作物的农田，常常严重损害那里的作物。

美国环保署正在调查多个州Dicamba相关的作物损失，并且和除草剂生产厂家商讨越来越多的投诉案件。

有的州开始限制Dicamba喷洒的方法和时间，对滥用除草剂和不参加网上训练课程的农场主大幅度提高罚款。上星期五，在收到超过120起因飘移而损害农作物的投诉案件后，密苏里州农业局局长Chris Chinn宣布暂时停止此除草剂的使用或销售。同一天，阿肯色州的司法机关宣布从7月11日起，禁用这种除草剂120天。

阿肯色州Weiner附近一个种植大豆和拥有一个种子公司的农场主Brad Doyle说“每个人都忧心忡忡”。自从2016年抗Dicamba的大豆开始种植以来，阿州Dicamba导致的作物损害投诉从去年的约30起，上升到今年的近600起。田纳西州和密西西比州的投诉也剧增。

孟山都和德国生产这类除草剂的化学合成公司BASF SE，批评了阿肯色州的禁令，说它在农作物生长季节急需喷药的关键时机，剥夺了农场主的使用权。

一个BASF的发言人说，阿肯色的禁令“无疑对遵守法律并成功使用这种除草剂的农场主是不公正的惩罚，同时对不遵守禁令的农场主，没有采取有效的震慑措施。阿州对违禁使用dicamba除草剂的严重案例的罚款从1000美元，提高至25000美元。

孟山都的发言人说这一禁令欠妥，因为所报道的作物的损害情况并没有得到全面调查。其公司并没有在阿肯色州卖所生产的Dicamba，因为还在接受学术审查。Dicamba除草剂的使用已经有几十年的历史，通过刺激植物的过速生长、耗尽所吸收养分而死亡。这种除草剂在喷洒的过程中容易随风漂移，因此厂商一般建议使用特殊喷头。它如果挥发或者以气体的形式扩散，也会造成损害。BASF和孟山都为了最大限度降低其它农作物损失，研发了与植物表面吸附性能更好的新产品。

阿肯色和密苏里的一些农场主对BASF和孟山都发起了法律诉讼，争论说它们对Dicamba相关的作物损失承担有一定的责任。这两家公司正对此进行反驳。

农作物学家们正在研究Dicamba对非抗Dicamba的大豆作物的影响，比如是否减少每棵植株的产豆量。但一些研究因最近的喷洒除草剂的漂移事件而被迫中断。

Uni­ver­sity of Ar­kansas North­east Re­search and Ex­ten­sion Cen­ter阿肯色大学东北研究和社区农科中心的主任，Chuck Wil­son说，几乎所有该研究所试验田的大豆都在六月被Dicamba除草剂损毁。约300英亩的试验田受损，其中包括用于测试Dicamba漂移影响的作物。Wilson说，“我们一切得从头开始，重新种植。这次希望不会再受到Dicamba的侵害。”

Jesse Newman参与了撰写此文。

 

各个州对Dicamba除草剂有关的投诉统计如下

 • 阿克色州: 596

 • 密苏里州: 123

 • 田纳西州: 76

 • 密西西比州: 60

数据来源: 各个州农业局

 

有关的阅读材料：

 • New Weed Killer Ar­rives Amid Fears of Crop Dam­age (Nov. 13, 2016)

 • Farm­ers’ Il­le­gal Use of Her­bicide Takes Toll on Neigh­bor­ing Crops (Aug. 2, 2016 )

 • Mon­santo Wins EU Nod for New Biotech Soy­beans (July 22, 2016)

 • U.S. Ap­proves New Mon­santo Soy­bean, Cot­ton Seeds (Jan. 15, 2015）

 

原文：

 

Arkansas Bans Herbicide as Farmers Blame Neighbors for Crop Damage

 

States add restrictions and fines as hundreds of farms in Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri and Mississippi report crops shriveled by dicamba

 

Hundreds of farms in Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi have reported crop damage from the herbicide dicamba. Bill Bader surveys peach trees at Bader Farms in Dunklin County, Mo., in August 2016, looking for damage he says is from illegal use of dicamba.

 

By Jacob Bunge……

Updated July 11, 2017 02:50 p.m. EDT

 

Crop dam­age from a pow­er­ful her­bi­cide is spread­ing across the south­ern U.S., spurring a flood of com­plaints to agri­cul­tural agen­cies and sow­ing di­vi­sion among farm­ers.

Hun­dreds of farms in Ar­kansas, Ten­nessee, Mis­souri and Mis­sis-sippi have re­ported crops shriv­eled by dicamba. For farm­ers, lower crop yields due to her­bi­cide dam­age could add to fi­nan­cial pres­sures af­ter sev­eral years of low crop prices.

Long used to kill weeds, new for­mu­la­tions of the po­tent chem­i­cal are be­ing widely de-ployed this year as more farm­ers plant soy­bean and cot­ton seeds en­gi­neered by Mon­santo Co. to with­stand dicamba. The St. Louis com­pany es­ti­mated in June that about 20 mil­lion acres of its new biotech soy­beans had been sold to farm­ers this year, up from about 1 mil­lion sold in a lim­ited re­lease last year.

The U.S. agri­cul­ture in­dus­try is bet­ting heav­ily on new com­bi­nations of biotech seeds and chem­i­cals like dicamba to com­bat weeds that have grown re­sis­tant to glyphosate, the world’s most widely used her­bi­cide. Glyphosate use has pro­lif­er­ated over the last 20 years as Mon­santo, DuPont Co. and Syn­genta AG have rolled out seeds en­gi­neered to sur­vive that spray. That has con­tributed to re­sis­tant weeds, which can choke out crops and dam­age farm equip­ment if left unchecked—fur­ther erod­ing al­ready-slim profit mar­gins for farm­ers. 

 

Dicamba-Re­lated Com­plaints, by State

 • Ar­kansas: 596

 • Mis­souri: 123

 • Ten­nessee: 76

 • Mis­sis­sippi: 60

Sources: State agri­cul­ture de­partments

 

But af­fected farm­ers say that when neigh­bors spray dicamba onto the new biotech crops, some of the her­bi­cide is drift­ing onto ad­ja­cent fields that aren’t planted with re­sis­tant va­ri­eties, some­times se­verely dam­ag­ing them.

The U.S. En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tection Agency is in­ves­ti­gat­ing dicamba-re­lated crop dam­age across mul­ti­ple states and is dis­cussing the mount­ing complaints with pes­ti­cide man­u­fac­turers.

Some states are re­strict­ing how and when dicamba can be sprayed, ratch­et­ing up fines for mis­use and man­dat­ing on­line train­ing cour­ses for farm­ers. On Fri­day, Mis­souri Di­rec­tor of Agri­cul­ture Chris Chinn an­nounced a tem­po­rary sus­pen­sion of the use or sale of the her­bi­cide in the state, fol­low­ing more than 120 com­plaints of drift dam­age. That same day, Ar­kansas law­mak­ers banned its use or sale for 120 days, be­gin­ning July 11.

“Every­body’s con­cerned about it,” said Brad Doyle, who raises soy­beans and runs a small seed com­pany near Weiner, Ark. The state has re­ceived nearly 600 com­plaints of dicamba-re­lated crop dam­age this year, up from about 30 in 2016, when dicamba-re­sis­tant soy­beans were in­tro-duced. Com­plaints have also surged in Ten­nessee and Mis­sis-sippi.

Mon­santo and Ger­man chem­i­cals conglom­er­ate BASF SE, which makes a version of the spray, crit­i­cized Ar­kansas for the ban, say­ing it de­prives farm­ers of a crit­i­cal weed­killer in the mid­dle of grow­ing sea­son.

A BASF spokes­woman said Ar­kansas’ ban “need­lessly pun­ishes grow­ers who have suc­cess­fully and law­fully used the product, while fail­ing to pro­vide an effective de­ter­rent to grow­ers who may be will­ing to ig­nore the ban.” The state also boosted fines on “egre­gious” dicamba vi­o­la­tions to $25,000 from $1,000.

 

Re­lated Read­ing：

 • New Weed Killer Ar­rives Amid Fears of Crop Dam­age (Nov. 13, 2016)

 • Farm­ers’ Il­le­gal Use of Her­bicide Takes Toll on Neigh­bor­ing Crops (Aug. 2, 2016 )

 • Mon­santo Wins EU Nod for New Biotech Soy­beans (July 22, 2016)

 • U.S. Ap­proves New Mon­santo Soy­bean, Cot­ton Seeds (Jan. 15, 2015

 

A Mon­santo spokes­woman said the ban was pre­ma­ture as the causes of re­ported crop in­juries hadn’t been fully investigated. The com­pany doesn’t sell its version of dicamba in Ar­kansas, be­cause acad­e­mics there are still re­view­ing it.

De­vel­oped decades ago, dicamba kills weeds by stim­u­lat­ing rapid growth that out­strips the plants’ nu­tri­ent sup­ply. The chem­i­cal is prone to spray drift, prompt­ing chem­i­cal mak­ers to rec­om­mend it be applied with spe­cial noz­zles. Dicamba can also pose a threat if the pes­ti­cide evaporates and spreads in gas form. BASF and Mon­santo have tried to min­i­mize that risk in newer ver­sions that bind the her­bi­cide more tightly to plants.

Some farm­ers in Ar­kansas and Mis­souri have filed law­suits against the two companies, ar­gu­ing they bear some liability for dicamba-re­lated crop dam­age. BASF and Mon­santo are con­testing the claims.

Crop sci­en­tists are re­search­ing the ef­fects dicamba can have on un­mod­i­fied soy­bean plants, such as re­duc­ing the num­ber of beans pro­duced per plant. But some of those ef­forts are be­ing dis­rupted by the spray.

Chuck Wil­son, di­rec­tor of the Uni­ver­sity of Ar­kansas North­east Re­search and Ex­ten­sion Cen­ter, said nearly all of the fa­cil­i­ty’s soy­bean re­search plots were dam­aged by dicamba in June. About 300 acres of crops were af­fected, in­clud­ing some planted to re­search dicamba drift dam­age.

“We ba­si­cally had to start over and re­plant,” Mr. Wil­son said, “and hope they don’t get hit again.”

 

Jesse Newman contributed to this article.