By: Rachel Benbrook The Pacific Northwest’s “mushroom man” Paul Stamets partnered with research scientists from Washington State University and USDA to conduct a potentially groundbreaking experiment showing that mushroom extracts can help bees fight off viruses. The research, published in Scientific Reports, was triggered by Stamets, a mycologist, author, and entrepreneur based in the Puget Sound. […]
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The dicamba drift crisis continues to deepen, with worrisome coverage of the largely hidden (so far) toll of this herbicide on trees and vines, and wild landscapes. NPR’s Dan Charles has taken an in-depth look at dicamba’s impact on some “Prized Trees” throughout the Midwest and Midsouth, including 200 year old cypress in Tennessee (see the image to the […]
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Steve Smith is the Director of Agriculture for Red Gold, which processes 80% of the tomato crop in the Midwest, and Chairman of the Save Our Crops Coalition. He recently traveled from Indiana to Washington D.C. for a September 28, 2018 meeting with senior EPA officials. The topic — the EPA’s pending decision on whether, and […]
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A research team from the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas in Austin has made an important contribution to the body of research seeking to answer this key question: Is the world’s most heavily used pesticide (glyphosate) contributing to the widespread decline of honeybees and other pollinators? Glyphosate is the #1 herbicide […]
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Answer — What to do about dicamba? Larry Steckel is a widely respected extension weed scientist who has worked for 30+ years for the University of Tennessee. He welcomed and enjoyed the wondrous years, 1996 through about 2004, when one or two applications of Roundup worked flawlessly on almost all corn, soybean, and cotton farms. […]
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New research by a team at the University of Washington evaluates the environmental costs of our food choices, specifically livestock, farmed seafood, and wild-caught fish. The study, which will be published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment is believed to be “most comprehensive look at the environmental impacts of different types of animal protein production,” […]
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In an announcement that appeared to take the USDA by surprise, FDA Comissioner Scott Gottlieb issued a statement on Friday claiming that the agency has jurisdiction over the development and marketing of lab-grown meat, and announcing plans to hold a public meeting on the subject in July 2018. Lab-grown meat is a hot topic in […]
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FERN, the Food and Environment Reporting Network, is ready for the upcoming farm bill vote, releasing the 7+ minute long video “What is the farm bill and why does it matter?” Congress takes up the farm bill every 5 years or so, and this huge piece of legislation is critically important to American agriculture, providing […]
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John Vidal, the former Environmental Editor at The Guardian, has written a compelling piece about the $66 billion takeover of the world’s largest seed company- Monsanto – by the second largest pesticide company, Bayer. Vidal reports that the huge deal, set to be approved June 7, 2018, “has been called both a ‘marriage made in hell’ […]
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The seductive, but corrosive impact of mythology will be a recurrent theme as historians explain the rise and fall of first-generation genetically engineered (GE) crop technology in the U.S. Here are just a few of the myths that arose along with the new crops: GE corn will affix its own nitrogen. Herbicide-tolerant crops will reduce […]
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