The state Plant Board's public hearing scheduled for today about dicamba use has become embroiled in conflicts-of-interest allegations.
Two board members have conflicts and shouldn't participate, two farmers said in separate filings released Tuesday by the Arkansas Department of Agriculture, the umbrella agency for the Plant Board.
The Plant Board's hearing is set for 9 a.m. at the Embassy Suites hotel in Little Rock, with its 16 voting members deciding whether to allow farmers to spray dicamba on their dicamba-tolerant soybean and cotton plants through May 20. Farmers had an April 15 cutoff date last year, effectively removing the herbicide's usefulness during the growing season against weeds that have grown resistant to other herbicides.
James Williams, co-owner of Scatter Creek Berries and Produce in Greene County, and Gale Stewart, a Little Rock attorney who owns 4,000 acres of farmland and conservation reserves in Woodruff County, said in notarized statements that Plant Board members Sam Stuckey and Barry Walls are biased in favor of dicamba's continued use because of various statements they've made.
Also Tuesday, Brad Koen, an area manager for BASF who was elected to the Plant Board about a month ago by the Arkansas Crop Protection Association, said he will vote in today's meeting unless the proposed regulation specifically involves BASF's Engenia dicamba. In seeking election to the Plant Board and in comments last week to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Koen had broader guidelines in which he would recuse.
The Arkansas Crop Protection Association, often called the ACPA, is a group of pesticide manufacturers and retailers and is one of nine agriculture-industry associations that elect a representative to the board. Seven other voting members are appointed by the governor.
"I've met with BASF's legal team," Koen said. "They have decided I am representing the ACPA, not BASF, and that the ACPA elected me to this board position. The reason I said I wouldn't vote, that was from the legal team of BASF. They have changed their legal opinion."
BASF's Engenia is the only in-crop dicamba registered in Arkansas by the Plant Board. Monsanto's in-crop dicamba is called XtendiMax; DowDuPont has a formulation called FeXapan.
"When voting on one of our products, I will recuse," Koen said. "This vote on dicamba, it's not directly on BASF and Engenia."
Elsewhere, two weeks after the expiration of a 30-day period for public comment, BASF submitted a two-page email to Plant Board members outlining its opposition to a cutoff date. A BASF representative wrote that she was sending the comments "in preparation of tomorrow's meeting and per Mr. Calhoun's instructions," a reference to V.O. "Butch" Calhoun, director of the Plant Board.
Calhoun said Tuesday afternoon that he wanted to clarify the day's events and sent an email to several people listed in an earlier email thread as to whether he'd given BASF special treatment.
"Upon being contacted by a BASF representative, I informed him that the public comment period had ended," Calhoun wrote. "I did not supply him with board member email addresses. I did not even see BASF's comments until they were emailed to me at the same time BASF sent them to all board members.
"BASF's comments will not be part of the official summary of public comments presented by staff at the public hearing. Just as you have communicated with Board members directly, I cannot prohibit you or anyone else from emailing board members."
In the recusal requests, Williams and Stewart said Stuckey, who farms in Crittenden County, was biased in favor of using dicamba deeper into the growing season. They cited Stuckey's comments Nov. 5 when the board was considering a group of farmers' formal petition for a June 15 cutoff. Such a date would give those farmers at least one chance to spray dicamba as weed pressure began to increase.
According to a transcript of that meeting, Stuckey said: "There is a few people, a handful of people on this board that have had to pay a crop loan back with row crop production, and Arkansas I feel like is falling behind, economically, agronomically. I would just like to say, this is coming from the turn row, have to get dirty making a crop, have to work hard to pay the loan back. We need to be able to, if not June 15th, we need to be able to use it in season."
Stuckey, who was appointed to the board last year by Gov. Asa Hutchinson to represent cotton growers, also made the motion to accept the June 15 cutoff date.
Williams and Stewart said those comments reflect Stuckey's personal and financial need to use dicamba deeper into the summer, rather than an obligation to consider the effects of dicamba on other farmers' crops and homeowners' trees and shrubs.
"I'd rather not comment, but I think [they've] got opinions and I've got mine," Stuckey said Tuesday morning. He said he intends to participate in the hearing.
Williams and Stewart said Walls shouldn't help decide dicamba's future in Arkansas because he appeared in a online video promoting a brand of dicamba-tolerant soybeans.
The video of Walls and his son was posted on YouTube in March 2016 by Armor Seed, which sells Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans, manufactured by Monsanto to be tolerant of dicamba and of glyphosate, which is more commonly known as Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. Walls said in the video that he had great success in 2015 with the beans.
Walls wasn't appointed to the Plant Board by Hutchinson until March 2017, to represent rice growers.
"Although Mr. Walls was not yet on the board, he should recuse from voting on the upcoming rule making," Williams wrote. "Mr. Walls has a vested personal interest in the use of dicamba on tolerant soybeans and cotton and has obvious bias in the matter."
Walls on Tuesday said the promotional video was for the dicamba-tolerant seeds, not the herbicide.
"Part of what I do for a living is seed production, and I had good results with those beans," Walls said, adding that he has made similar videos in favor of other varieties that aren't dicamba-tolerant.
The board faced a similar recusal petition at a public hearing in November 2017, when Monsanto tried to get a Plant Board member disqualified.
Now owned by Bayer, Monsanto said Terry Fuller, who's still on the board representing seed growers, had a conflict of interest when he urged people to sign form letters in support of tighter restrictions on dicamba. Fuller responded that he had a duty to represent the seed-dealers group that elected him to the board. He said the group had met 17 times that year on dicamba and "had several votes to restrict spraying in some way."
When the board opened its public hearing that day, Fuller said he also had a responsibility to all Arkansas residents, not just seed growers or farmers. The board unanimously voted to allow Fuller to participate. Ultimately, he recused from the 10-3 vote setting the April 15 cutoff.
Nine votes will be needed to make a change to pesticide regulations, regardless of the number of board members present, according to Bob Midles, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department. If no changes are made, the April 15 cutoff date remains in effect for this season.
Business on 02/20/2019