A US jury has awarded $265 million to a Missouri farmer who blamed herbicide from chemical giants Bayer AG and BASF for destroying his peach orchards, in a case set to bolster 140 other lawsuits. Jurors in federal court in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, made the ruling on Saturday after peach farmer Bill Bader claimed the companies encouraged farmers to use the dicamba weedkiller irresponsibly. Bloomberg News reported that the case was the first US trial over dicamba herbicide, which is alleged to have wrecked crops across America’s Midwest by drifting onto plants that were unable to resist it.
