Agriculture

"Romaine lettuce is unsafe to eat in any form, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday in a food safety alert in response to a new outbreak of illnesses caused by a particularly dangerous type of E. coli bacteria.

The CDC told consumers to throw away any romaine lettuce they may already have purchased. Restaurants should not serve it, stores should not sell it, and people should not buy it, no matter where or when the lettuce was grown. It doesn’t matter if it is chopped, whole head or part of a mix.

"The Agriculture Department has canceled a contract that would have awarded federal bailout money to a Chinese-owned pork producer after the company asked for the contract to be terminated amid a political backlash."

"A decade ago, the U.S. mandated the use of vegetable oil in biofuels, leading to industrial-scale deforestation — and a huge spike in carbon emissions."

"California regulators recommended new restrictions Thursday on a widely used pesticide blamed for harming the brains of babies."

"The Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t know if the treated sewage sludge that farmers use as fertilizer is safe, according to a report from its internal watchdog."

"When people think of potential solutions to global warming, they tend to visualize technologies like solar panels or electric cars. A new study published on Wednesday, however, found that better management of forests, grasslands and soils in the United States could offset as much as 21 percent of the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions."

"Every August, Andrew Joyce used to hunker down in the field beside his house, picking juicy, ripe tomatoes in the blazing sun."

"An hour north of San Francisco lie two-dozen dairy and meat farms that have produced some of the most beloved artisanal brands in northern California – along with a farm-fresh, locally sourced foodie ethos that has become globally influential. All the dairies in Point Reyes are organic, and the beef is grass-fed."

"There is an 80 percent chance of the El Niño weather pattern to form and continue through the northern hemisphere in winter 2018/19, a U.S. government weather forecaster said on Thursday."

"Mahiuddin, a 35 year-old farmer from Badghis, a mountainous province in western Afghanistan, has been living in a camp outside the city of Herat for months, one of tens of thousands displaced by the worst drought the country has seen in years."