Monsanto mon will give cash back to U.S. farmers who buy a weedkiller that has been linked to widespread crop damage, offering an incentive to use its product even as regulators in several U.S. states weigh restrictions on its use.
The incentive to use XtendiMax with VaporGrip, a herbicide based on a chemical known as dicamba, could refund farmers over half the sticker price of the product in 2018 if they spray it on soybeans that Monsanto engineered to resist it, according to company data.
The United States faced an agricultural crisis this year caused by new formulations of dicamba-based herbicides, which farmers and weed experts say harmed crops because they evaporated and drifted away from where they were sprayed.
Monsanto says XtendiMax is safe when properly applied. The company is banking on the chemical and soybean seeds engineered to resist it, called Xtend, to dominate soybean production in the U.S., the world’s second-largest exporter.