Manufacturer of banned ‘organic’ Agro Gold WS herbicide faces severe fines

By Tim Carl

NAPA, Calif. — In early 2020 a local farmer grew suspicious when an "organic" herbicide named Agro Gold WS performed nearly as well as the synthetic herbicide Roundup. The farmer alerted the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), and they issued a statewide stop-use order for Agro Gold WS on Dec. 4 of that year. Following an 18-month investigation, the CDFA announced a penalty of $1.89 million (plus over $92,000 for investigative costs) against Agro Research International, the company responsible for Agro Gold WS, due to adulteration with diquat and glyphosate, the active chemicals in Roundup.

In spring, the presence of brown and green striped vineyards often indicates herbicide use - Tim Carl Photo

The CDFA's investigation scrutinized 16 unique lots of Agro Gold WS and identified 378 instances of "unequivocal confirmation of adulteration with diquat and glyphosate."

Too good to be true

When Agro Gold WS was first introduced, local vineyard owners were thrilled about a product claiming to be a natural alternative to synthetic weed killers, and the revelation that it contained prohibited chemicals was a shock to the industry. A local organic grape farmer, who requested anonymity, initially expressed skepticism but was eventually persuaded to use the product after a sales representative presented convincing data.

"When I first learned about it, I was just blown away that this 'organic' product worked as well as Roundup," she said. "And now I know why — it was full of the stuff."

ARI has denied adding glyphosate or diquat to its products, and Agro Gold is still listed for sale on their website. However, California, Washington, Oregon and a few other states have banned its use while it remains legal in other locations.

In spring, the presence of brown and green striped vineyards often indicates herbicide use - Tim Carl Photo

The rise of Roundup – a brief history

Gas-powered tractors were first invented in 1892 but were rarely used in vineyards until the 1920s. Farmers plowed the land either by hand or using a horse and plow. After World War II — in the 1940s — synthetic fertilizers became widely available, and their application quickly became a standard viticultural practice. At about the same time two herbicides entered the market — 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (known as 2,4-D) and 2,4,5- trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (known as 2,4,5-T).

These two chemicals would eventually be combined to create Agent Orange, a potent defoliant used in jungles during the Vietnam War to eliminate plant growth that might conceal the enemy. Over time, however, the byproduct found in both 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T — dioxin — was discovered to negatively impact both animal and human health, causing cancer, reproductive and developmental problems, damage to the immune system and hormone regulation disruption.

By the early 1970s these health concerns led to the development of a new alternative herbicide that would eventually become known as Roundup. Introduced in 1974, Roundup — a glyphosate-based herbicide — was unlike the earlier options and initially believed to be harmless to anything other than the plants to which it was applied.

The product was considered so safe that the Monsanto scientists who invented it often claimed that drinking Roundup was harmless. As a result, Roundup quickly became the most widely used herbicide on the planet. In the mid-1990s, when the patent for Roundup was ending, Monsanto came up with an ingenious new idea.

Because glyphosate was an indiscriminate herbicide — that is, it killed any plant to which it was applied — researchers created genetically modified seeds for crops such as corn and soybeans that were essentially immune to Roundup. The result was that farmers could spray their crops throughout the year to kill unwanted weeds without affecting what they had planted. This was a boon for Monsanto, which could now sell both the seeds and the Roundup.

The outcome? The global application of Roundup skyrocketed. A 2017 study found that Americans' exposure to glyphosate had increased roughly 500% since the so-called “Roundup Ready” genetically modified glyphosate-tolerant crops were first introduced in the mid-1990s. Unfortunately, studies now indicate that glyphosate is not as harmless as once believed and is being associated with cancers as well as liver and kidney damage.

Although there are no "Roundup Ready" grapevines since vines go dormant during the winter months, using glyphosate became a standard practice for many grape farmers who sprayed to keep weeds at bay during late winter or early spring before bud break. This resulted in a common sight during the spring: brown strips of dead weeds under vines with the vine rows remaining vibrant green, forming a visual corduroy pattern.

In spring, the presence of brown and green striped vineyards often indicates herbicide use - Tim Carl Photo

Avoiding monitoring

One of the larger distributors of Agro Gold WS, Wilbur-Ellis, no longer sells the product.

The California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) provided a statement that said because products from ARI had previously been approved for use, farmers who used Agro Gold WS before the ban would not be at risk of losing their organic certification, but that the, “…statewide quarantine and stop use notice” remains in effect.

The benign nature of the ingredients listed on the Agro Gold WS label (molasses, bacteria and essential oils) allowed it to evade close monitoring and regulation as a synthetic chemical. These unregulated products are not required to be reported to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, making it challenging to track their application and usage. They are not found in the state's Pesticide Information Portal database, which means there's no way to confirm exactly who applied these products and how much was used. A request for use and/or sales data for Agro Gold WS to Wilbur-Ellis, the CDFA, the FDA and ARI received no response by the time of publication.

Since Agro Gold WS was believed to contain only harmless ingredients, the impact on those who applied the products to their fields remains an open question. Were proper hazardous-chemical application procedures followed? For instance, was appropriate protective gear worn?

Ironically, the rapid adoption of Agro Gold WS was primarily due to the negative publicity and recent lawsuits surrounding Roundup.

In 2018, Bayer, the German chemical and pharmaceutical maker, paid $66 billion for Monsanto, with one of the firm's larger assets being Roundup. With the sale, Bayer inherited lawsuits and tens of thousands of claims that Roundup caused cancer. In 2020 the German company agreed to pay more than $10 billion in settlements, but in an astonishing twist was permitted to continue selling Roundup without adding warning labels about its health risks, according to The New York Times.

Even before the Bayer lawsuits were settled, farmers who had used Roundup in the past were anxious about possible liability. A frantic scramble to find alternatives ensued.

 Agro Gold WS

“We stopped using Roundup a few years ago, and this seemed like such a great alternative,” said the grape farmer. “We just don't have many effective alternatives, but I know lots of folks who used it [Agro Gold WS], even those who aren't organic because nobody wants to use Roundup anymore.”

Another catalyst for the rapid adoption of Agro Gold WS was an increasingly tight labor market. Historically, organic farmers might manually remove weeds under vines by either tilling with a tractor or by hand. The cost of such labor-intensive processes, however, can be prohibitive, even when labor is available. Weeds are removed from under vines because some believe they deplete the grapevines of needed nutrients and water.

The Agro Gold WS incident serves as a cautionary tale for the wine industry, highlighting the importance of thorough testing and regulation of additives and application products. It reinforces the need for skepticism and careful consideration when adopting new solutions in vineyard management.

“I just can’t understand why this isn’t front-page news,” the farmer said. “One of the problems here is that companies are actively trying to deceive, but another issue is that there are few out there researching and reporting, even when things like this are happening in plain sight.”