Kansas City, Kan.-A North Carolina manufacturer and registrant for the herbicide Barricade (prodiamine) and a Wisconsin company that served as an authorized distributor of a fertilizer product containing the herbicide have agreed to pay civil penalties to settle allegations that they sold a misbranded pesticide and altered labels on the pesticide product. Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. of Greensboro, N.C., will pay $9,152, and Eau Claire Co-op Oil Co. Inc., of Eau Claire, Wisc., will pay $6,864, according to separate but related administrative consent agreements filed here by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Syngenta is the official EPA registrant for Prodiamine Pro F 0.38 percent herbicide. Eau Claire Co-op Oil is an authorized supplemental distributor of the herbicide in a herbicide-fertilizer product marketed as Award Turf Fertilizer with 0.38 percent Barricade. During an inspection of a Missouri lawn care business in March 2010, a representative of the Missouri Department of Agriculture found bags of Award Turf Fertilizer with 0.38 percent Barricade that bore conflicting stick-on labels for the percentage of active ingredients. The stick-on labels also partially covered the directions for the product’s safe and proper use. The bags containing the misbranded product and bearing the altered labels were produced by Eau Claire Co-op. Eau Claire Co-op’s distribution of those bags of herbicide-fertilizer product constituted a violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). Syngenta was also in violation because it was the registrant, while Eau Claire was its supplemental distributor for the pesticide. Through their approvals of the respective settlements, Syngenta and Eau Claire Co-op have both certified that their operations are now in compliance with FIFRA and its regulations.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain