Hi peapod - I've re-written this post, hopefully removing the contentious bits. Let's try again!...
A few months ago I spent some days getting what I thought was really nice well-rotted manure from a well-run local stables (over 50 sacks of the stuff). It was spread liberally over the allotment that my wife has been working so hard on, and on our new front garden, in preparation for planting - and all over our vegetable plot in the back garden.
The allotment potatoes came up - but they looked diseased. Last night I googled it and guess what I have found!.... Yes, Dow 'AgroScience', your product is in my manure and therefore throughout my land.
My allotment is ruined, my new front garden is ruined and the vegetable plot in my back garden is ruined. Yes, manure contaminated with the Dow 'AgroScience' product aminopyralid is still around in May 2011 and it's still wrecking peoples' hard work. If this happened in the USA Dow 'AgroScience' would be facing a class action lawsuit, with the prospect of forking out huge sums of money in compensation.
Potatoes are not the only things to have been affected. Many other plants have either died, or not come up, or are just sitting weakly in the ground.
Having read posts elsewhere, I cannot justify eating any crop I have grown, for fear of the consequences. 'Dow' says that their herbicide is pretty harmless to humans, but how can I trust the statements of a company that put this herbicide on the market in the way it did? What I mean is that it's not hard to see that if you allow AMINOPYRALID into horse pastures, or into fields that will be used for straw for horse bedding IT WILL GET INTO HORSE MANURE. If it gets into horse manure, inevitably it gets into allotments and gardens.
So, did Dow 'AgroScience' fail to do their research properly (or even their basic thinking), in which case they would be responsible, or did they put the product onto the market KNOWING what the consequences would be, in which case they would also be responsible. Either way, Dow 'AgroScience' should take responsibilty for their actions.
I would like to start, or join a campaign if one already exists, to encourage Dow to take responsibility for the damage their product has caused.