AG warns dicamba ban active

The state’s ban on dicamba remains in effect, the attorney general’s office said Friday in an effort to clarify who, if anyone, can apply the herbicide and where.

For now, only 37 farmers who filed a lawsuit in Clay County Circuit Court against the state’s April 16Oct. 31 ban and won temporary restraining orders can spray, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said.

Because the Arkansas Supreme Court already has temporarily halted two similar rulings in Mississippi and Phillips counties, she expects the same to happen when the court considers the attorney general’s appeal of the Clay County decision.

“The Plant Board’s dicamba ban currently applies to everyone except for the farmers involved in the Clay County lawsuit,” she said in a statement, adding that Clay County is the “only jurisdiction with a temporary restraining order still in place.’’

The Arkansas Agriculture Department, which is the umbrella agency of the Plant Board, also changed its statement regarding the ban and legal cases. On April 13, the department said, “At a minimum we will be enforcing the federal label for pesticide applications until there is more certainty from the court system in interpreting recent decisions.”

Early Friday evening, the department posted a new notice, saying dicamba “is prohibited in Arkansas” through Oct. 31 and that only the plaintiffs in the Clay County case can use the herbicide “until the Supreme Court rules otherwise.”

The department also noted that the ban has an exemption for the use of dicamba in pastures and rangeland, on turf and ornamental plants, as a direct injection for forestry, and for home use.

Circuit Judge Randy Philhours of Paragould granted farmers’ request April 16 in Clay County Circuit Court that the state Plant Board be temporarily restrained from enforcing the ban. The plaintiffs farm in counties, including Clay, that make up the state’s 2nd Judicial District.

In Mississippi County on April 12, Circuit Judge Tonya Alexander granted a temporary restraining order in favor of about 114 farmers who had sued the state. Circuit Judge Christoper Morledge of Helena-West Helena did the same on April 13 in favor of 68 farmers.

All three hearings in the Clay, Mississippi and Phillips cases were heard ex parte, or without the presence or knowledge of the attorney general’s office.

Circuit Judge Melissa Bristow Richardson of Jonesboro rejected a similar request by farmers after holding a hearing April 20 that included deputies from the attorney general’s office who argued that the ban wasn’t arbitrary, as farmers claimed, and had been implemented after months of study and meetings.

Only 21 percent of the state’s soybeans have been planted, far behind the 39 percent planted at this point a year ago, because of low temperatures and rain, according to the statistics service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The cool spring also has delayed the planting of corn and rice. With few soybean seeds in the ground and no immediate threat from pigweed, which has grown resistant to other herbicides, farmers in theory have had little reason for widespread spraying of dicamba.

Through Friday, the Plant Board had received one official complaint, a spokesman said.