Canada’s Pest Management Review Agency approved Garlon XRT herbicide, the first industrial vegetation product with drone application on the label.

“We are the first company to have a pesticide registered with PMRA for drone application,” said Mark Versluys, specialties business leader for Corteva Agriscience in Calgary.

“There is no other pesticide in Canada that has drone application on the label,” he said.

Versluys said the data collection and processing of the information required for approval took many months before the company received approval from PMRA.

Now, the herbicide can be sprayed by drone under utility right-of-ways, transmission lines, oil and gas leases and on steep mountainous terrain, anywhere Garlon was already registered for use in industrial areas. The approval does not extend to drone spraying for agricultural use.

Versluys said Corteva will continue to collect data and work with PMRA to have other pesticides registered for application by drone in the future.

“This isn’t just a one and done. This is the first step in a very exciting journey,” he said.

“I think the future looks very bright.”

Markus Weber, president of Landview Drones, said while the door is open a crack, PMRA needs to do more to add drone application registration for agricultural use to existing labels. Approving one herbicide at a time will take five to 10 years before there is a large selection of chemistry available for farmers.

Weber said ideally, he would hope PMRA would approve any chemical for drones that is now approved for aircraft.

“To me that is ultimately the way that we need to do this. It can’t just be label by label,” he said at the Agriculture in Motion farm show held northwest of Saskatoon.

In the first hour of the show, more than 120 farmers showed up for a drone demonstration.

“It is incredible. Farmers see this as a tool primarily for three things: brush control, pasture fungicide application and desiccant application.”

Pest control products can’t legally be sprayed by drone, but farmers see the potential, he said.

“Now that drones can fly large acreages and spraying can be done quickly and reliably, they see the potential, but they just can’t because the label doesn’t allow them to.”

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The move will impact two production sites in Germany and 300 jobs at those facilities which will be retained until the end of 2025 and then gradually reduced.

BASF said it faced growing competition from generic suppliers of glufosinate-ammonium and alternative technologies.

Nevertheless, glufosinate is to remain a “key component” of BASF’s herbicide portfolio. In future, the company intends to source the active ingredient from third-party suppliers.

BASF is also working on the development of next-generation glufosinate solutions, which should achieve the same effect with significantly lower quantities.

BASF acquired the product from Bayer in 2017 as part of a larger deal to buy seed and herbicide businesses from the company for 5.9 billion euros (C$8.69 billion).

At the time, Bayer was trying to persuade competition authorities to approve its acquisition of Monsanto.

—Reporting  for Reuters by Patricia Weiss, Rachel More and Chiara Holzhaeuser

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Weeds are growing resistant to the herbicides already on the market, and agribusiness companies like Bayer are in a desperate search for new modes of action to help farmers kill them.

Bayer’s Icafolin product will be its first new mode of action herbicide in some 30 years when it launches in Brazil in 2028.

Frank Terhorst, executive vice president of strategy and sustainability at Bayer’s Crop Science Division, told Reuters on Monday that AI could help speed up finding that next new mode of action.

“You want to find the one where you have maximum performance on what you want to kill – weeds, and basically no impact on everything else. And that balance is extremely difficult,” Terhorst told Reuters after an event in Chicago.

AI, he said, helps the company match the protein structure of a weed with a molecule that targets that structure, and enables it to use huge amounts of data.

It is a faster process, he said, and there are fewer dropouts.

Bob Reiter, head of research and development, crop science, at Bayer, said in a statement that with AI tools, the timeline for the discovery of the next new mode of action could be much shorter.

“If we take the example of early research only, we today have at least three times the number of new modes of action compared to ten years ago,” he said.

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In addition to the jury verdict in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Bayer said a California farmer, who said he contracted the same type of cancer from exposure to the product, and his wife on Tuesday voluntarily dropped their lawsuit while a trial was underway in the in state court in Sonoma County, California.

“We continue to stand behind the safety of Roundup and will confidently defend the safety of our products and our good faith actions in any future litigation,” Bayer said in a statement.

Scott Love, a lawyer for Carl Kline, the plaintiff in the Pennsylvania case, said the jury had not been allowed to hear key evidence, including a finding by a World Health Organization body that glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, was likely capable of causing cancer.

A lawyer for the California plaintiffs, Michael and Bobbie Meyer, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It was not immediately clear why the Meyers dropped their case.

Tuesday’s victories come on the heels of another trial win for the company in Arkansas on Friday. Bayer has now prevailed in 13 of the last 20 Roundup trials, while plaintiffs have scored large verdicts totaling more than $4 billion, including $2.25 billion in a single case in January.

The company is appealing its trial losses, which include large punitive damages awards that are likely to be reduced because they exceed U.S. Supreme Court guidance.

Around 165,000 claims have been brought in the U.S. against Bayer over Roundup, which the company acquired as part of its $63 billion purchase of U.S. agrochemical company Monsanto in 2018. Many were resolved as part of a $9.6 billion settlement in 2020, but about 54,000 remain.

Bayer CEO Bill Anderson told investors in a call on Tuesday that he was “considering every possible means to bring closure” to the litigation, including solutions “outside the courtroom,” though he did not offer details.

The company phased out sales of glyphosate products for home use last year, though it still sells other formulations under the Roundup name.

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Glacier FarmMedia — Day one of the 2024 Commodity Classic is in the books and a few interesting themes emerged from the annual gathering of U.S. corn, soybean, wheat and sorghum growers.

U.S. farmers are clearly annoyed about a number of new pesticide regulations.

Growers felt blindsided by a federal district court ruling in Arizona vacating the 2020 registrations for a variety of dicamba products used on 50 million acres of U.S. corn and soybeans.

The ruling meant growers couldn’t use the product for the 2024 growing season.

However, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has since ruled that growers can use existing stocks of the product that were packaged, labeled and shipped prior to the Feb. 6 court ruling.

That is a big relief to the country’s soybean and cotton growers, but they wonder what’s in store for 2025 and beyond.

Farmers are also concerned about the EPA’s response to numerous other court rulings that determined the regulator has continually failed to meet its Endangered Species Act obligations.

Farm groups say the EPA’s proposed Herbicide Strategy, which will bring registrations into compliance with the act, is going to cost them a fortune.

A survey conducted by the American Soybean Association (ASA) indicates 80 percent of producers would not comply with the EPA’s proposal and would face “moderate to extreme” costs to become compliant.

“The proposal would likely require billions of dollars for farmers across the country to implement and could prevent some farmers from using certain herbicides entirely,” the ASA stated in a press release.

A petition it circulated collected 1,500 signatures from growers, applicators and other agricultural stakeholders calling for withdrawal of the proposal.

Soy growers were pleased that the EPA recently announced it has extended the deadline to finalize the strategy by three months to August 30, giving it more time to consider their criticism of the strategy.

Another big topic of conversation at the convention is the 2024 Farm Bill, an omnibus package of legislation that covers everything from school nutrition programs to farm safety nets.

Grower groups are lobbying hard for a bill that “does no harm” to crop insurance programs and sets higher reference prices for crops that will trigger direct payments sooner under today’s falling price environment.

The U.S. Congress is still debating and designing the bill, which was originally supposed to be in place for 2023.

There was plenty of talk about markets at the conference as well.

Al Kluis, with Kluis Commodity Advisors, had good news and bad news for farmers.

The good news is that he thinks corn and soybean futures prices have bottomed out, at least temporarily.

The bad news is that if the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s yield and acreage forecasts for 2024-25 are correct, it doesn’t bode well for prices, especially for corn.

“We could see extremely low prices in the fall,” he said.

The soybean outlook doesn’t look nearly as bad, and he is extremely excited about the long-term future for that crop due to looming demand from the sustainable aviation fuel industry.

PepsiCo and Walmart talked about their US$120 million joint venture to support sustainable agriculture in the U.S. and Canada.

The program aims to accelerate the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices on more than two million acres of farmland in the U.S. and Canada, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by four million tonnes by 2030.

Monitor the pages of The Western Producer and other Glacier FarmMedia publications for full stories on these and other topics from the 2024 Commodity Classic.

––Sean Pratt writes for the Western Producer. 

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Earlier this week, a federal court judge “vacated” the U.S. registrations of several dicamba-based herbicides, saying the Environmental Protection Agency “violated procedures mandating public input,” Reuters reported.

The ruling affects Bayer’s XtendiMax, BASF’s Engenia and Sygnenta’s Tavium. The herbicides are applied during the growing season to soybeans and cotton crops that have genetic tolerance to dicamba.

The change in registration status doesn’t affect Canadian growers, said Ginger Rozmus, Bayer Crop Science Canada communications spokesperson.

“The recent court ruling in the U.S. has no impact on Canada’s use or registration of Roundup Xtend 2 and XtendiMax 2 herbicide with VaporGrip technology,” she said in an email.

Further, she said, soybeans that have been sprayed with dicamba can still be exported to the United States.

“The recent U.S. ruling is a result of a procedural error and not related to the safety of the product,” Rozmus said.

“There are no changes to MRLs (maximum residue levels) enabling export of agricultural products.”

While Canadian farmers can relax, the court decision could have massive implications for soybean and cotton growers in the U.S.

The ruling could impact more than 50 million acres of dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton, says the American Soybean Association.

“If the administration does not issue an existing stocks order so we can use the millions of dollars of product already ordered for spring planting, we are in a world of hurt,” said Josh Gackle, ASA president and a soybean grower from North Dakota.

The timing of the ruling is problematic because most farmers have already ordered their seed and herbicides for this growing season.

“There are few alternative products available to cover the capacity of a nationwide switch,” the Soybean Association said.

The court in Arizona ruled that the EPA failed to provide public notice and a comment period before re-registering dicamba products in October 2020.

“The court outlined the massive damage to stakeholders that were deprived of their opportunity to comment, such as growers that do not use over-the-top dicamba,” said the Centre for Food Safety, an environmental group and one of the plaintiffs in the case.

The Feb. 6 court ruling is the latest twist in a complicated story related to dicamba.

After dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton entered the market, there were thousands of reported cases of dicamba drift and damage to other crops in 2017. Part of the problem was that many growers used older formulations of dicamba that were more volatile.

The University of Missouri estimated that 3.6 million acres of soybeans suffered off-target damage in 2017, and there were 2,700 complaints across the U.S.

In response, the U.S. EPA introduced label changes for in-crop spraying of dicamba, saying it could only be applied at lower wind speeds and during daytime hours to avoid temperature inversions that can cause drift.

Dicamba drift has also been an issue in Ontario. A grower may plant Xtend soybeans with tolerance to dicamba on one field, but the next field over could have beans that are sensitive to dicamba.

Drift has been less of a problem in Manitoba’s soybean industry, possibly because the province has a cooler climate and growers apply herbicides early in the growing season.

The drift complaints in the U.S. led to lawsuits, and environmental groups challenged the EPA in court.

In June 2020, a U.S. court ruled that the EPA understated the risk related to the drift of the herbicide. It vacated the registration for over-the-top use of dicamba products.

However, the EPA decided farmers could use their existing supplies “before it eventually reauthorized use again with new restrictions in October 2020,” said CropLife.com.

That EPA decision prompted another lawsuit, which led to the Feb 6. court ruling in Arizona.

The American Soybean Association and other farm groups are asking the EPA to issue an existing stocks order as soon as possible so growers can use dicamba over the top in soy and cotton crops in 2024.

––Robert Arnason writes for the Western Producer from Manitoba.

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Environmental activists cheered the court for halting use of the dicamba-based herbicides, which are known to drift away and damage crops that cannot tolerate the chemical.

Some farm groups and agribusinesses said the ruling, if enforced by the federal government, risks hurting farmers financially and reducing options for fighting weeds that are increasingly developing resistance to a limited number of herbicides.

U.S. District Court Judge David Bury in Arizona this week vacated the Environmental Protection Agency’s registrations of dicamba-based weedkillers from 2020, saying the agency violated procedures mandating public input. The ruling affects Bayer’s XtendiMax, BASF’s Enginia and Sygnenta’s Tavium, commonly used herbicides on U.S. farms.

Bayer soybeans that resist dicamba-based herbicide are the No. 2-most planted soybeans in the United States.

The companies said they disagreed with the ruling and were waiting for direction from the EPA. The EPA said it was reviewing the decision.

“Most soybean and cotton farmers have made seed and chemistry purchase decisions and, in some cases, are preparing to plant their 2024 crop in the coming weeks,” BASF said. “This order may threaten the livelihoods of soybean and cotton farmers who rely on over-the-top dicamba to control resistant weeds.”

The ruling bars farmers from spraying the dicamba products in the upcoming growing season unless the EPA allows already-shipped batches to be used, said Meredith Stevenson, staff attorney for the Center for Food Safety. The center called the decision “a vital victory for farmers and the environment.”

In June 2020, a U.S. appeals court blocked dicamba-based herbicide sales and ruled the EPA understated risks related to its use.

The EPA, under former President Donald Trump, subsequently said farmers could use their existing supplies before it eventually reauthorized use again with new restrictions in October 2020.

Under President Joe Biden, the agency in December 2021 questioned whether dicamba weedkillers could be sprayed safely on soybeans and cotton without posing “unreasonable risks” to other crops.

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In many cases weeds are developing resistance against multiple herbicides, scientists said.

Reuters interviewed two dozen farmers, scientists, weed specialists and company executives and reviewed eight academic papers published since 2021 which described how kochia, waterhemp, giant ragweed and other weeds are squeezing out crops in North Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota as chemicals lose their effectiveness.

Over the last two decades, chemical companies have reduced the share of revenue devoted to research and development spending and are introducing fewer products, according to AgbioInvestor, a UK-based firm that analyzes the crop protection sector.

Farmers say their losing battle with weeds threatens grain and oilseed harvests at a time when growers are grappling with inflation and extreme weather linked to climate change.

“We’re in for big problems over the next 10 years for sure,” said Ian Heap, director of the International Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds, a group of scientists in over 80 countries that maintains a global database. “We are in for a real shake-up.”

The database records reduced effectiveness for glyphosate, one of the most common herbicides, against 361 weed species, including 180 in the U.S., affecting corn, soy, sugar beets and other crops.

Some 21 weed species globally showed resistance to dicamba, the most recent major U.S. chemical, which launched in 2017.

Environmental groups argue that farmers should embrace natural weed-control methods instead of chemicals.

Kochia, which spreads as many as 30,000 seeds per plant, can cut yields by up to 70 per cent if left unchecked, according to Take Action, a farmer resource program of the United Soybean Board.

Other factors, including the development of more robust seeds, have pushed overall global crop yields higher. But scientists expect weed problems to worsen, with some weeds showing resistance to chemicals even on first exposure.

‘Really scary’

In Douglas, North Dakota, farmer Bob Finken sprayed dicamba and glyphosate to kill late-season weeds. Neither product eliminated kochia.

“That was really scary,” said Finken, 64. “Each year seems to get a little worse.”

Finken was forced to clear the weeds with harvesting equipment, which risks clogging expensive machinery.

Other farmers are hiring workers to pull weeds by hand, said Sarah Lovas, an agronomist with GK Technology, a precision agriculture firm.

North Dakota was the largest spring wheat producing state in 2023 and ninth-biggest soybean grower.

Five of North Dakota’s 53 counties have confirmed populations of dicamba-resistant kochia, a year after it was first reported in the state, North Dakota State University weed specialist Joe Ikley said.

“It’s just a matter of time before it hits your farm,” said Monte Peterson, 65, who grows soybeans near Valley City, North Dakota.

Lab scale-back

Chemical producers Bayer, Corteva and FMC FMC.N say longer development and regulatory processes have constrained new products to combat weed resistance. Industry executives say regulators have become more stringent about environmental and health impacts.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said standards for approving new herbicides have not substantially changed since 1996. However, the EPA said recent efforts to assess the impact of new active ingredients on threatened plants and wildlife have delayed some decisions.

The EPA did not estimate the increased processing time. The agency said it expedites reviews of lower-risk products.

Farm chemical companies spent 6.2 per cent of sales revenue on development of new active ingredients in 2020, down from 8.9 per cent in 2000, AgbioInvestor said. Its data showed the introduction of new active ingredients fell by more than half in 2022 from 2000.

Instead, companies have expanded uses of existing products like dicamba, glufosinate and 2,4-D.

FMC plans the 2026 launch of an herbicide to kill grassy weeds in rice crops based on the industry’s first new mode of action, a term for the way a chemical kills a weed, in three decades.

The herbicide was in development for 11 years. FMC hopes it will generate $400 million in sales within a decade, a fraction of the roughly $8 billion global glyphosate market.

“If we don’t keep developing the new products, we are going to run into a wall where growers don’t have the tools to combat the pests,” CEO Mark Douglas said. “And then ultimately you face food security issues.”

The world’s biggest agriculture chemical and seed company, Germany’s Bayer, hopes to produce its first new mode of action herbicide in over 30 years by 2028.

“We’re really desperate for (new modes of action) if we’re going to sustain uses for farmers,” said Bob Reiter, head of research and development for Bayer’s crop science division.

Two decades ago, companies commercialized a product for every 50,000 candidates, but it now takes 100,000 to 150,000 attempts, Reiter said.

U.S.-based Corteva said it has incorporated sustainability criteria, such as reduced groundwater risk, in its research and development, aiming to clear the path with regulators.

It hopes that approach will shorten the regulatory process when it introduces a fungicide with a new mode of action against Asian soybean rust disease in Brazil around 2027, said Ramnath Subramanian, vice-president of crop protection research and development. He did not say how much shorter the process may be.

Bill Freese, scientific director of the Center for Food Safety in Washington, said farmers should shift away from crops genetically engineered to tolerate herbicides, which lead to plants becoming resistant to multiple chemicals through repeated sprayings.

“It’s like this toxic spiral,” Freese said. “There’s no end in sight.”

–Reporting for Reuters by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba and Tom Polansek in Chicago.

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Upholding a permanent injunction, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco found it unconstitutional to force Bayer’s Monsanto unit, which makes Roundup, and other agricultural businesses to provide California’s proposed carcinogen warnings under a state law known as Proposition 65.

Writing for a 2-1 majority, Circuit Judge Consuelo Callahan said making the producers a “billboard” for California’s “at best, disputed” message that glyphosate is unsafe violated their First Amendment commercial speech rights, despite the state’s substantial interest in its citizens’ health.

“Compelling sellers to warn consumers of a potential ‘risk’ never confirmed by any regulatory body — or of a hazard not ‘known’ to more than a small subset of the scientific community — does not directly advance that interest,” she wrote.

Bayer called the decision “a strong blow against compelled warnings for Roundup that are not supported by science and will be important in the company’s ongoing personal injury litigation.”

California’s original warnings linked glyphosate to cancer. A revised warning proposed last year referred to findings in 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the France-based specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization, that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic” to humans.

Callahan rejected all the warnings, saying they required Bayer and other objectors to convey a “controversial, fiercely contested message that they fundamentally disagree with.”

Tuesday’s decision upheld a June 2020 injunction issued by U.S. District Judge William Shubb in Sacramento.

“We are disappointed,” the office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta, which had appealed the injunction, said in an email. It declined to address whether it planned another appeal.

Lawyers for 13 agriculture and business trade groups that also opposed the warnings did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bayer has faced extensive litigation over Roundup, including three losses in trials last month, since it bought Monsanto for US$63 billion in 2018.

It settled most Roundup claims for US$10.9 billion in 2020, but by early this year still faced about 45,000 claims.

— Jonathan Stempel is a Reuters correspondent covering U.S. federal and state courts from New York.

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In an unscheduled statement late on Monday, the German drugs and pesticides maker said it was projecting 2023 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), adjusted for one-offs, to be in a range of 11.3 billion euros ($12.5 billion) and 11.8 billion euros on a currency-adjusted basis, down from 13.5 billion euros reported for 2022.

That was lower than a previous 2023 outlook of 12.5 billion euros, or slightly higher.

Free cash flow would come in at zero, down from a previous prediction of 3 billion euros, said the company, which is due to release detailed second-quarter results on Aug. 8.

“Based on the anticipated market development, in particular with respect to the glyphosate business, Bayer also expects to record a goodwill impairment of approximately 2.5 billion euros,” it said.

That would result in a second-quarter net loss of 2 billion euros.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank said dry weather conditions in particular had hurt farmers’ demand for seeds and pesticides.

The tougher environment adds to challenges faced by new CEO Bill Anderson, the former Roche ROG.S executive who took over the top job in June.

“This is an anything but a good start for the new CEO,” Markus Manns, portfolio manager at German mutual fund firm Union Investment, said on Tuesday.

“Bayer could have used the money for debt reduction or for pharmaceutical licensing deals,” he added.

Analysts at Barclays said the dwindling cash flow was a particular surprise, and that Anderson was likely keen to get the bad news out quickly to allow for a fresh start.

“This feels like a kitchen sink to us,” they said.

Bayer shares dropped as much as 3.2% in early trading but were up 1.6% by 0854 GMT.

Weak agriculture markets have also hit rivals, so that Bayer’s profit warning was largely foreseen by analysts. Crop protection company FMC FMC.N this month cut its full-year guidance after wholesale distributors slashed orders to reduce inventory levels. Industrial chemicals group BASFBASFn.DE, which competes with Bayer in seeds and pesticides, this month cut its earnings guidance, though it did not provide details on its agriculture business.

Bayer had already warned in May that its 2023 results would likely come in at the lower end of its targeted range, hurt by cost inflation and a slump in prices of glyphosate-based weedkillers from last year’s highs.

Bayer saw herbicide sales jump 44% in 2022 after Hurricane Ida damaged rival producers and constrained Chinese suppliers failed to plug the gap. Prices have been dropping sharply as competitors have returned to the market this year.

Bayer, which has paid billions for litigation over its glyphosate weedkillers, replaced its previous CEO Werner Baumann early amid demands from some investors that the German industrial giant simplify its diversified structure and split into separate groups.

($1 USD = 0.9032 euro)

–Reporting for Reuters by Thomas Escritt and Ludwig Burger.

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