A hard-nosed account of Monsanto and its controversial and popular herbicide Roundup comes in a new book by a former wire service reporter, who pieced together documentation and fact-finding from over 20 years to make a case there was a dangerous cover-up. BookShelf reviews Carey Gillam’s “Whitewash.”
"Jeff Sands, U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's senior agricultural adviser and a former pesticide lobbyist, received a limited waiver from President Trump's ethics pledge."
"An Arkansas judge on Friday dismissed a Monsanto Co lawsuit aiming to stop Arkansas from blocking the use of a controversial farm chemical the company makes, dealing a blow to its attempts to increase sales of genetically engineered seeds."
A recently unearthed report reveals Bureau of Land Management plans to limit how many FOIA requests a single person or group can submit and to make government records more expensive to acquire.
"Critics are blasting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for dramatically lowering a fine on agribusiness company Syngenta for violations of pesticide regulations."
"CHARLESTON, S.C. — Among the biologists, geneticists and historians who use food as a lens to study the African diaspora, rice is a particularly deep rabbit hole. So much remains unknown about how millions of enslaved Africans used it in their kitchens and how it got to those kitchens to begin with. That’s what made the hill rice in Trinidad such a find."
"No-till farming started as a way to keep costs down for conventional farmers in danger of losing their land. Now it has become a subculture and a way of life for outsider farmers."
"Republican lawmakers are threatening to cut off U.S. funding for the World Health Organization’s cancer research program over its finding that the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup is probably carcinogenic to humans."
"A judge has ruled that U.S. wildlife managers erred in denying Endangered Species Act protection to bison at Yellowstone National Park and must reconsider extending such safeguards to America’s largest pure-bred herd of wild buffalo."
"Due to heavy fertilizer use, California's Central Valley is behind up to 41 percent of the state's emissions of nitrogen oxide — an air pollutant and climate-warming gas".
"A large proportion of California's nitrogen oxide—which can cause harmful ozone and a variety of health impacts—comes from heavy fertilizer use in the state's Central Valley, according to a new study.
