Agriculture

"Environment and food safety groups are pushing the Obama administration to overhaul the nation’s regulations for genetically engineered (GE) plants and animals."

"Fields along the Mississippi River Delta once gleamed white in the autumn with acre upon acre of cotton ready to be picked. But to see the decline of a cash crop once nicknamed 'King Cotton' one need look no further than the 300 acres (121 hectares) that Michael Shelton farms in Clarksdale, Mississippi, about 75 miles (1201 km) down river from Memphis."

"Overuse of antibiotics in animal feed is making it harder for doctors to treat life-threatening infections in young children, a report from U.S. pediatricians warns."

"One recipe for renewable natural gas goes: Place manure from about 2 million hogs in lagoons, cover them with an impermeable material and let it bake until gas from the manure rises. Then, use special equipment to clean the gas of its impurities and ship the finished product out."

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has finalized a set of groundbreaking food safety rules for produce farms and importable goods to strengthen its food safety system."

"With the help of 20 years’ worth of research and thousands of prehistoric shards of pottery, a large group of scientists have presented evidence that the deep relationship between humans and honeybees is far older than we thought — giving us just one more reason to care about the conservation of a species that we’ve relied on for thousands of years."

"The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) on Thursday said glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto weedkiller Roundup, was unlikely to cause cancer in humans, but it proposed new controls on any residues in food."

"It official: The algae bloom that covered Lake Erie this past summer was the biggest and baddest ever recorded."

"The American Farm Bureau Federation and other industry groups today asked the Supreme Court to review U.S. EPA's landmark approach for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay."