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Top 10 Ag Stories of 2025: No. 9

Jason Jenkins 12/19 4:58 AM

Editor's Note: Each year, DTN publishes our choices for the Top 10 ag new stories of the year -- issues and events -- as selected by DTN analysts, editors and reporters. This year, we're counting them down from Dec. 18 to Dec. 31. On Jan. 1 and Jan. 2, we will look at some of the runners-up for this year. Today, we continue the countdown with No. 9: Glyphosate's struggles and survival.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (DTN) -- For the past five decades, U.S. farmers have relied on glyphosate, the herbicide commonly known as Roundup, for weed control. But in 2025, it seemed that mounting costs from lawsuits and efforts to "make America healthy again" might push the product off the market -- even while its largest manufacturer and the agricultural industry try to ensure its survival.

In recent years, plaintiffs have filed tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging glyphosate causes cancer, resulting in Bayer, makers of Roundup, paying more than $10 billion in settlements. This year alone, a Cobb County, Georgia, jury awarded a plaintiff $2.065 billion in compensation and damages, while a state appeals court in Missouri affirmed a trial court's $661 million product-liability judgement in favor of four plaintiffs who alleged Bayer's glyphosate caused their non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Bayer CEO Bill Anderson stated this spring that unless legal protection or other solutions emerged, Bayer might stop producing glyphosate entirely, potentially affecting farmers who rely on it. Such statements heightened concern among agriculture groups, who filed an amicus brief in court in support of Bayer.

Those groups included the American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, American Sugarbeet Growers Association, Cherry Marketing Institute, Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, International Fresh Produce Association, National Association of Wheat Growers, National Corn Growers Association, National Cotton Council of America, National Sorghum Producers, North American Blueberry Council and Western Growers. In the brief, the groups stated that glyphosate is "essential to sustaining American farming," and that removing it from the market would "pose an immediate, devastating risk to America's food supply."

Another group, the Make America Healthy Again Commission, also was commenting on the country's food supply and potential negative impacts on health from pesticides. After calling out glyphosate in its assessment in May, the commission backed away from criticizing pesticides in its report released in September. Instead, the report stated that EPA and USDA will partner with food and agricultural stakeholders to raise public awareness about EPA pesticide reviews.

As glyphosate's safety was argued throughout the year by courts and commissions, efforts backed by Bayer were pushing legislation to protect pesticide companies from claims that they failed to warn that their product allegedly causes cancer if their product labels have been approved by EPA without such designation. North Dakota passed such a law in 2025, as did Georgia. Similar efforts in other states -- including Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma and Tennessee -- failed to pass their legislatures. Similar language has also appeared in proposed federal legislation.

In December, the U.S. solicitor general said the U.S. Supreme Court should grant review to Bayer on a petition filed by the company that could bring product-liability lawsuits to an end on the glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup. Just days later, however, a Dutch academic publishing company retracted a 25-year-old safety evaluation and risk assessment of Roundup that had been used by regulators such as EPA in assessments to approve use of the herbicide.

EPA is currently undergoing registration review for glyphosate. According to the agency website, a proposed interim decision on the pesticide is to be release sometime in 2026, a decision that could determine whether this commonly used crop-protection tool is available to farmers to control weeds.