Agriculture

"Tropical Storm Debby brought intense rainfall and flooding threats to North Carolina on Thursday, highlighting the vulnerability of hog lagoons and wastewater treatment plants."

"A new scientific report lends weight to consumer concerns about pesticide residues on food, presenting fresh evidence that washing fruit before eating does not remove various toxic chemicals commonly used in agriculture."

"On a sweltering July afternoon, two large yellow bulldozers dug into the brown soil at the bottom of a lush avocado orchard near the small town of Madero, located in central Mexico’s Michoacan state."

"Patsy Hirsch and her husband moved to an Elgin subdivision nearly three decades ago, drawn by a backyard thicket of oak, hickory and cherry trees so dense the canopy blotted out the sun."

"The US Environmental Protection Agency has issued an emergency suspension of the common weedkiller DCPA, also known as Dacthal, it said Tuesday, the first time the agency has used its emergency suspension authority in 40 years."

"When Hurricane Idalia struck Florida last summer, a tree fell straight through a trailer occupied by a migrant-farmworker family in Hamilton County. They couldn’t afford to move, even temporarily, so the family of six just picked up the things they could salvage and continued to live around the rotting tree."

"Due largely to lagging prevention efforts in the Midwest, the low-oxygen area of the Gulf of Mexico is larger than expected this year, prompting fish and shrimp to flee nearly 4 million acres of habitat and killing off bottom-dwelling species."

"In a rare rebuke to the industrial farm sector, the Michigan Supreme Court this week ruled that state environmental regulators have full authority to require livestock and poultry operations to improve their handling of billions of pounds of manure that contributes to contamination of waterways."

"The birds were accidentally poisoned in India. New research on what happened next shows how wildlife collapse can be deadly for people."

"Although health officials say the risk of H5N1 bird flu infection is still low for the general population, they announced on Monday a $5-million plan to offer seasonal flu vaccine to livestock workers."