Agriculture

"Midwest soil is eroding at an alarming rate according to new, first-of-its-kind research."

"The Colorado River’s largest reservoirs stand nearly three-quarters empty, and federal officials now say there is a real danger the reservoirs could drop so low that water would no longer flow past Hoover Dam in two years."

"Governments appear to have signed a once-in-a-decade deal to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems, but the agreement seems to have been forced through by the Chinese president, ignoring the objections of some African states."

"After their homeowner association ordered them to replace their wildlife-friendly plants with turf grass, a Maryland couple sued. They ended up changing state law."

"As California faces the prospect of a fourth consecutive dry year, officials with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have declared a regional drought emergency and called on water agencies to immediately reduce their use of all imported supplies."

"Nomad Tsering Angchuk vows to stay put in his remote village in India’s Ladakh region. His two sons and most of his fellow villagers have migrated to a nearby urban settlement but Angchuk is determined to herd his flock of fine cashmere-producing goats in the treeless Kharnak village, a hauntingly beautiful but unforgiving, cold mountainous desert."

"The last remaining registrations that allow chlorpyrifos to be used on food crops would be canceled under a pair of notices the EPA is proposing, a move that would end food uses of a pesticide the agency says harms children."

"On a mountainside high above Peru’s capital, Javier Obispo pauses from the backbreaking work of renovating an amuna. The abandoned irrigation dike distributed water before Europeans came to South America."

"The owner of Deep Roots Farm in rural Maryland and her workers finished the fall harvest last month, but some of their most vital plantings are still in the ground - and growing fast."

"More than 200,000 Somalis are suffering catastrophic food shortages and many are dying of hunger, with that number set to rise to over 700,000 next year, according to an analysis by an alliance of U.N. agencies and aid groups."