Agriculture

Florida has become the first state in the country to set regulations for the purity of honey -- prohibiting chemicals or additives, including corn syrup sweeteners, in products marked as honey.

"California's San Joaquin Valley has lost 60 million acre-feet of groundwater since 1961, according to a new federal study. ... The Central Valley is America's largest farming region; it's also the single-largest zone of groundwater pumping."

"In the verdant farmland surrounding Monterey Bay, a national marine sanctuary and one of the world's biological jewels, scorched-earth strategies are being imposed on hundreds of thousands of acres in the quest for an antiseptic field of greens. And the scheme is about to go national."

"Wine makers are shaking things up in their vineyards. Some of them use natural and organic methods to control pests and weeds instead of using pesticides. Now, one winery has discovered a unique, natural way to prune their grape vines."

Urban farmer Will Allen, half a mile from Milwaukee's biggest housing project, is different from others in the good-food movement.

"San Joaquin Valley farms are laying off workers and letting fields lie fallow as their water ration falls."

The Oregon legislature Monday sent to the governor a bill that would phase out the longstanding practice of burning off agricultural fields growing grass seed.