Farmers have been using the weed killer glyphosate – a key ingredient of the product Roundup – at soaring levels even as glyphosate has become increasingly less effective and as health concerns and lawsuits mount.

On August 10, a San Francisco court ordered the agribusiness company Monsanto to pay nearly $290 million in damages to a California man who alleges his cancer was caused by Roundup, the company’s most widely used herbicide. The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting reached out to Charles Benbrook, one expert for the plaintiff, to learn more about the trial and what it could mean for the future of glyphosate.