Monsanto salesman exits Plant Board for new agriculture post

State Plant Board member Jammy Turner said Monday that he has resigned to take a seat on the Arkansas Agriculture Board.

Turner, a sales representative for Monsanto, said his resignation had nothing to do with his employment and the controversy over the past two years concerning the use of the dicamba herbicide and Monsanto’s genetically engineered crops. He resigned in a letter Sept. 5 to Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who appointed Turner to the Plant Board in 2015.

Replacing Turner on the Plant Board will be Matthew Marsh of Little Rock, a farm manager for Brantley Farming Co. of Lonoke.

“There was a good opportunity for me to continue my service through the Arkansas Agriculture Board,” Turner, of Gillett in Arkansas County, said. “A seat was available there, and I thought it was a good fit for me.” He is still filling out paperwork, so his latest appointment isn’t official, he said.

The Plant Board, a division of the state Department of Agriculture, is in charge of regulating numerous aspects of the agriculture industry, including the registration of herbicides and pesticides in the state.

The Arkansas Agriculture Board holds no regulatory powers. Its members include officials with various state agencies that deal with

agriculture and citizen representatives selected by farm groups and other agriculture interests.

“There’s no regulatory function, for sure, and it is more of an advisory council,” Turner said, “but I think both of them involve a lot of hard work and both are important to agriculture.”

Members of either board don’t receive a salary, although they can be reimbursed for expenses.

Turner has worked for Monsanto since 2002.

His position on the Plant Board by law is reserved for a farmer “actively and principally engaged” in the business, and Turner’s critics said he was an owner of farmland and not a farmer. Turner earlier this year said he was enough of a farmer to be qualified for membership on the board.

His career at Monsanto didn’t get much attention until last year, when the first complaints of dicamba damage to crops were filed.

Monsanto began marketing dicamba-tolerant cottonseed in 2015 and dicamba-tolerant soybeans in 2016 without yet having its new dicamba herbicide approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Some farmers used older, illegal formulations of dicamba last year, and the herbicide in some cases moved off-target and damaged neighboring crops.

The Plant Board last year refused to let the new Monsanto herbicide into the Arkansas market this year. Since early June, the board has received nearly 1,000

complaints of crop damage caused by off-target movement of dicamba, prompting the state on July 11 to institute a 120-day ban on the sale and use of all dicamba products while it investigates how damage occurred.

The Plant Board is considering whether to continue the ban next year or set a cutoff date on spraying the herbicide. Only one dicamba herbicide, BASF’s Engenia, was allowed in Arkansas for in-crop use this year.

Turner said the Plant Board is filled with potential conflicts of interest: 16 members represent all aspects of the Arkansas agriculture industry. “Everyone on that board has a vested interest in Arkansas agriculture,” he said. Two other nonvoting members represent the UA System’s Division of Agriculture.

While some of members are appointed by the governor, others are selected by various farm associations and trade groups, such as those representing seed dealers and seed growers, livestock, row crops and nurseries.

While Turner abstained from voting on most matters that affected Monsanto, he joined the debate before those votes were taken.

At one Plant Board meeting, in January, he brushed aside comments by specialists and university scientists during a discussion on how the state should require independent, third-party research before allowing a herbicide or other chemical into the

Arkansas market. Monsanto had allowed university scientists to study its new herbicide for its effectiveness against weeds but not of any tendency to move off-target.

“Industry brings solutions to agriculture. Academics doesn’t,” Turner said at that meeting.

Turner on Monday said Monsanto’s criticism last week of the Plant Board and university weed scientists, alleging that decisions and science have been biased, played no role in his leaving the panel.

“This is something I pursued on my own,” he said. “I’ve been really proud of the way I’ve been able to manage that situation — working for Monsanto and serving on the Plant Board at the same time.”

The university pushed back against Monsanto’s claims, calling them an “attack on a whole profession — scientists whose careful work is meant to be a benefit to all.”

Turner declined to comment on Monsanto’s claims and said he didn’t know of the comments until after they were made.

Turner’s initial two-year appointment to the Plant Board expired March 17, and his reappointment didn’t occur until until late June. That was well after this year’s regular legislative session had concluded, effectively bypassing a state Senate panel that seeks to confirm gubernatorial appointments to certain state boards and commissions.