Pesticides are all over, from backyard gardens to cornfields. While their use doesn’t appear to be slowing, concern over drift and the resulting effects on health is driving research — and more worries. Those concerns are bringing pesticides to a different venue: courtrooms. 

Farmers in a federal class-action lawsuit filed two main complaints this week against agro-chemical giants Monsanto and BASF regarding the herbicide dicamba, which is blamed for millions of acres of crop damage, especially to soybeans, over the last couple years.

The herbicide dicamba has been in the news a lot over the past year. One University of Missouri researcher says dicamba has been blamed for more than 3 million acres of damaged soybeans in 2017 alone. 

More than 100 Illinois pesticide retailers reported the weed killer dicamba drifted and damaged soybeans even when it was sprayed in good conditions, according to a recent industry survey.