The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently renewed approvals for two herbicides for use on corn, cotton and soybeans to combat the emergence of broadleaf weeds among crops.
Enlist Duo and Enlist One were each given seven-year approvals, a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) said. Both utilize 2,4-D, an ingredient proven to control weeds that are resistant to glyphosate, an EPA press release said.
The reapprovals were issued with new protections for endangered species, the EPA release said. The agency stated that it has evaluated the impact these two herbicides have on endangered wildlife and measures will be implemented to ensure their safety.
“It’s good that the EPA is finally putting at least some on-the-ground measures in place to protect the nation’s most endangered species from these highly toxic products,” Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in the CBD release. “But we’re deeply concerned that the agency failed to complete consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service during this process, and we hope that the Service will step in quickly to ensure that the nation’s most endangered plants and animals are adequately protected.”
The new protective measures include prohibiting the use of the products in areas that could harm endangered species which effectively limits their use on about 3% of corn acreage, 8% of cotton acreage and 2% of soybean acreage, the CBD release said.
According to CBD, the herbicides were previously used to control weeds in genetically-modified crops “altered to withstand what would normally be a fatal dose of the chemicals.” The reapproval allows them to be used on both conventional and genetically engineered corn, cotton, and soybeans.
“2,4-D is most famous for being a component of the infamous Vietnam-era defoliant ‘Agent Orange,’ which has been linked to Parkinson’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and reproductive problems,” the CBD release said.
Enlist Duo was first registered in 2014, while Enlist One was first registered in 2017, the EPA release said.
