Monsanto Faces Farmer Antitrust Suit on Dicamba, Resistant Seed

Monsanto Corp. faces a treble damages class action alleging that its pesticide Dicamba poses such a risk to farmers they are forced to purchase resistant seed -- marketed under patent at high prices by Monsanto -- to avoid catastrophic damage to their crops from pesticide drift.

A North Dakota farm alleges it bought and Monsanto’s dicamba-resistant soybean seeds to avoid damage from nearby farms using the pesticide. The complaint, filed Feb. 1 in Missouri federal court, says that Monsanto recklessly marketed a pesiticide shown to be very volatile and very mobile from target fields to neighboring areas. As a result, ...