{"id":208,"date":"2011-11-15T07:33:56","date_gmt":"2011-11-15T12:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/pesticide-spray-drift-finally-gets-legal-rebuf.html"},"modified":"2011-11-15T07:33:56","modified_gmt":"2011-11-15T12:33:56","slug":"pesticide-spray-drift-finally-gets-legal-rebuf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/pesticide-spray-drift-finally-gets-legal-rebuf.html","title":{"rendered":"Pesticide spray drift finally gets legal rebuf"},"content":{"rendered":"Tired of hacking and coughing after cotton fields get sprayed to open their bolls?\nTired of losing your garden or organic crops to Roundup drift?\nNow there are two precedents for legal recourse.\n

\nEthan A. Huff wrote for NaturalNews.com 3 August 2011,\n\nCourt rules organic farmers can sue conventional, GMO farmers\nwhose pesticides ‘trespass’ and contaminate their fields<\/a>\n

\nPurveyors of conventional and genetically-modified (GM) crops — and the\n\n<\/a>\npesticides and herbicides that accompany them — are finally getting a\ntaste of their own legal medicine. Minnesota’s Star Tribune has reported\nthat the Minnesota Court of Appeals recently ruled that a large organic\nfarm surrounded by chemical-laden conventional farms can seek damages for\nlost crops, as well as lost profits, caused by the illegal trespassing\nof pesticides and herbicides on its property.\n

\nOluf and Debra Johnson’s 1,500-acre organic farm in Stearns County,\nMinn., has repeatedly been contaminated by nearby conventional and\nGMO farms since the couple started it in the 1990s. A local pesticide\ncooperative known as Paynesville Farmers Union (PFU), which is near the\nfarm, has been cited at least four times for violating pesticide laws,\nand inadvertently causing damage to the Johnson’s farm.\n

\nThe first time it was realized that pesticides had drifted onto the\nJohnson’s farm in 1998, PFU apologized, but did not agree to pay for\ndamages. As anyone with an understanding of organic practices knows,\neven a small bit of contamination can result in having to plow under\nthat season’s crops, forget profits, and even lose the ability to grow\norganic crops in the same field for at least a couple years.\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd all most people have done so far is let it slide.\nBut the Johnsons did something.\n\n\n

\nThe Johnson’s let the first incident slide. But after the second, third,\n\n<\/a>\nand fourth times, they decided that enough was enough. Following the\nsecond pesticide drift in 2002, the Johnson’s filed a complaint with the\nMinnesota Agriculture Department, which eventually ruled that PFU had\nillegally sprayed chemicals on windy days, which led to contamination\nof the Johnson’s organic crops.\n<\/blockquote>\nBut that didn’t stop the spray drift.\n
\nAfter enduring much hardship, the Johnson’s finally ended up suing PFU\nin 2009 for negligence and trespass, only to receive denial from the\ndistrict court that received the case. But after appealing, the Johnson’s\nreceived favor from the Appeals Court, which ruled that particulate\nmatter, including pesticides, herbicides, and even GM particulates, that\ncontaminates nearby fields is, in fact, considered illegal trespass,\nand is subject to the same laws concerning other forms of trespass.\n

\nIn a similar case,\n\na California-based organic farm recently won<\/a>\na $1 million lawsuit filed against a conventional farm whose pesticides spread\nthrough fog from several miles away, and contaminated its fields. Jacobs\nFarm \/ Del Cobo’s entire season’s herb crop had to be discarded as\na result, and the court that presided over the case acknowledged and\nagreed that the polluters must be held responsible.\n<\/blockquote>\nSo, now you can sue about pesticide drift and there is legal precedent to win.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tired of hacking and coughing after cotton fields get sprayed to open their bolls? Tired of losing your garden or organic crops to Roundup drift? Now there are two precedents for legal recourse. Ethan A. Huff wrote for NaturalNews.com 3 August 2011, Court rules organic farmers can sue conventional, GMO farmers whose pesticides ‘trespass’ and […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,8,40,42,174,44,11],"tags":[714,2774,2778,2765,173,171,715,713],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-agrochemicals","category-economy","category-food-and-drink","category-glyphosate","category-health","category-law","tag-drift","tag-economy","tag-health","tag-law","tag-organic","tag-pesticide","tag-precedent","tag-spray"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-3m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}