I’m flat busted. My Missouri corn and soybean farm is bankrupt, financially incompetent, a lousy credit risk, upside down--you pick the financial euphemism for a balance sheet that is downright ugly. I’m still paying my bills on time and eating good, due to some profitable years in the recent past, but any honest appraisal of my farm’s future income and liabilities is dark indeed. Of course, if there is any comfort to be found in shared misery, every other producer of corn and soybeans in the U.S. is in the same position.

Declaring that dicamba "is a valuable pest control tool for America’s farmers,” EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced Wednesday, Oct. 31 the agency was extending by two years the conditional registration for the herbicide to be used "over the top" to control weeds in dicamba-resistant soybeans and cotton.

The Environmental Protection Agency failed to take into account the risks associated with dicamba before allowing Monsanto's Xtendimax formulation of the herbicide to be used for the 2017 growing season, lawyers for environmental groups and small family farms told a federal appeals court Wednesday.