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By Jasmine Laws
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Experts have been sounding the alarm after the Trump administration indicated it would be bringing back a pesticide that was twice banned by two different federal courts due to the harm caused by the chemical.
On July 23, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its proposal to approve registration for the use of dicamba on dicamba-tolerant cotton and soybean crops.
"Over-the-top dicamba is very effective for controlling herbicide-resistant weeds in dicamba-tolerant cotton and soybeans," an EPA spokesperson told Newsweek.
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"Under the Trump Administration, EPA will ensure that farmers have the tools they need to protect crops and provide a healthy and affordable food supply for our country."
However, after the announcement, the Center for Food Safety, which was one of the organizations that filed lawsuits against EPA reregistration of the chemical previously, issued a warning that dicamba can cause "devastating damage to farms, home gardens, native plants and wildlife refuges."
Why It Matters
Dicamba is a herbicide that kills broad-leaved weeds, and is similar to the chemical 2,-4-D. It is often used on home lawns, farms, golf courses, and roadsides; however, it has become a risky weed killer due to the high chance of drift damage, as the diffusion of the chemical harms surrounding crops and wildlife.
Agricultural organizations have warned that if the EPA were to bring back dicamba, the results would be devastating, as they have been in the past when the chemical was previously used.
Millions of acres of non-genetically engineered soybeans, orchards, gardens, trees and other plants were damaged on an "unprecedented" scale by the unintentional diffusion of the chemical, the Center for Food Safety reported.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture data revealed that up to 15 million acres of soybeans were damaged by dicamba drift in 2018 alone.
Pollinators, such as monarch butterflies and rusty-patched bumblebees, are also threatened by the pesticide, the organization added, noting that beekeepers in multiple states have reported sharp drops in honey production due to dicamba drift.
There have also been studies which found "increased risks linking exposure to dicamba with colon and pancreatic cancers," David F. Goldsmith, an occupational and environmental epidemiologist at Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, D.C, told Newsweek.
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What To Know
The EPA told Newsweek that "with the new, additional mitigations EPA has proposed, the agency is confident these products won't cause issues for human health or the environment."
However, experts have said the opposite. "The proposal removes several restrictions that had previously applied to how farmers can use dicamba," Bill Freese, science director at the Center for Food Safety, told Newsweek.
Freese explained that previously, farmers could only spray during certain midday hours, to avoid drift-promoting conditions, such as temperature inversions, that occur quite frequently in the morning and evening—a measure that has been removed.
He said that dicamba manufacturers had proposed a cutoff date for spraying soybeans, so there would be no spraying after June 12, to "avoid spraying later in the growing season when more neighboring crops are most vulnerable to drift damage." This measure was also not adopted by the EPA, Freese said.
The EPA is now proposing a temperature cutoff, which would mean that farmers can spray throughout the spring and summer, unless temperatures exceed 95 degrees, he added.
"This proposed restriction, however, would be completely unworkable and unenforceable," Freese said.
While George Kimbrell, legal director at Center for Food Safety, told Newsweek the organization was still reviewing the EPA's plan, he said that it is a proposal that "we will be arguing they should reject, but if it is finalized in the current form than it is no better and arguably worse," than previous registration plans.
In 2018, the first-term Trump administration EPA registered multiple dicamba formulas for use, and the move prompted a number of food safety organizations to file a lawsuit to challenge the decision.
In 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the EPA had "substantially understated risks that it acknowledged and failed entirely to acknowledge other risks."
The court added that damage caused by dicamba was "substantially underreported" and that the agency had "refused to estimate the amount of dicamba damage, characterizing such damage as "potential" and "alleged," when record evidence showed that dicamba had caused substantial and undisputed damage."
This ruling deemed the EPA's move unlawful, making the sale and use of the chemical illegal.
In that same year, less than five months after the ruling, the EPA again reapproved use of the pesticide, and in 2024, the U.S. District Court of Arizona overturned the agency's move, after organizations once again filed legal action against the EPA.
The move by the EPA also comes as a contrast to the Trump administration's "Make America Healthy Again" campaign, which warned about the use of pesticides, reporting that the chemicals had been found in the blood and urine of children and pregnant women at "alarming levels."
While the MAHA report linked pesticides to cancer and other diseases, the Trump administration last week said it had no plans to crack down on pesticide use in farming.
What People Are Saying
Bill Freese, science director at Center for Food Safety, told Newsweek: "None of the many restrictions EPA has imposed on dicamba since its first approval in late 2016 have come anywhere near to reigning in the massive drift damage this herbicide has caused, more than any other in the history of agriculture. This decision is a travesty, a betrayal of the many farmers and rural Americans who voted for Trump."
Gurumurthy Ramachandran, director of the Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety and Health, told Newsweek: "Dicamba was removed or restricted in many areas due to its high volatility and tendency to drift, which can cause damage far beyond the intended application zone. Even when used according to label instructions, environmental factors like heat and wind can cause dicamba to vaporize and move onto neighboring crops and wild vegetation, damaging sensitive plants that are not engineered to resist it."
He added: "Dicamba was reapproved despite previous bans primarily due to pressure from agribusiness interests and the ongoing challenge of controlling herbicide-resistant weeds in major crops like soybeans and cotton.
Ramachandran said: "Gardens, fruit trees, and ornamental plants in proximity to fields can suffer severe effects from dicamba drift, causing loss of harvest and plant death. Homeowners may find their property damaged with little recourse, as dicamba injury can be hard to trace and not covered by insurance. People in agricultural areas may face higher risks of exposure, with potential links to certain cancers and respiratory issues. Degradation of pollinator and wildlife habitats impacts food chains and ecosystem services, ultimately affecting food security and environmental quality."
Cynthia Curl, a professor in the School of Public and Population Health at Boise State University, Idaho, told Newsweek:"While the EPA has not identified dicamba as a carcinogen, some studies have found associations between dicamba exposure and certain types of cancer."
She said: "American agriculture uses a large amount of glyphosate in production of products like corn and soy, since the introduction of genetically-engineered glyphosate-resistant crops. This substantial use has led to the emergence of glyphosate-resistant weeds which require management through a different crop protection method. By introducing dicamba-resistant cotton and soybeans, farmers will be able to spray those crops with dicamba, killing the glyphosate-resistant weeds without harm to the crop."
Curl added: "I think there will be a dramatic increase in dicamba applications, much like was seen for glyphosate. This will likely lead to more off-target drift, which would be detrimental to any nonresistant crops, nonagricultural plants and home gardens. This could also increase the amount of dicamba in the food supply."
David F. Goldsmith, an occupational and environmental epidemiologist at Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, D.C, told Newsweek: "The EPA proposed approvals for three products containing the weedkiller dicamba, whose use was halted by a federal court in 2024, arguing it does not pose a significant human health or environmental risk. This new decision appears to be a boost for growers of genetically altered soybeans and cotton that are designed to resist weed killing properties of dicamba. I am concerned that growers, farmworkers, and the general public may be confused because of the reversal of EPA rules."
Gerald LeBlanc, a professor of biological sciences at the North Carolina State University, told Newsweek: "Dicamba is being returned to use due to heavy lobbying from the agriculture industry. The industry claims that there are few alternative herbicides that can be effectively used in the large-scale control of weeds. While glyphosate has been used as an alternative to dicamba, the industry claims that weeds are becoming increasing resistant to glyphosate requiring that a substitute be found. The industry claims that if use instructions are followed, drift can be minimized. Not everyone agrees with this."
He added: "Commercial gardeners will be faced the prospect that use of dicamba on neighboring farms will damage their crops due to herbicide drift. Loss of crops would have negative financial impacts on growers and reduce the availability and increase the cost of affected fruits and vegetables to the general public."
What Happens Next
There will now be a 30-day comment period where stakeholders can provide evidence and share input with the EPA before it makes its final decision.
Kimbrell told Newsweek the reason for the comment period was that the last time the EPA tried to reregister the pesticide, it skipped this step, and the "Court said that was unlawful and required it."
He said that the Center for Food Safety will be "urging the EPA to reverse course and not let the pesticide industry pressure it into unlawfully causing grave harm to farmers and the environment once again."
He added that if they refuse, the organization would "explore all legal options."
Update 7/24/25, 1:15 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from David F. Goldsmith.
Update 7/25/25, 2:53 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Gerald LeBlanc.
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