The Xerces Society, an international non-profit that works to conserve invertebrates and their habitats, has launched a new website that hosts an extensive database of pesticide research. The Impacts of Pesticides on Invertebrates Database collects and disseminates summaries of research articles about pesticides that their impact on invertebrates, particularly pollinators, and the environment. Articles can be […]
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Andrew Kniss is a professor at the University Wyoming whose research is partially funded by the pesticide and biotech industry. My research over the last ~15 years has been substantially funded by organic food companies, and foundations that hope to support bio-based innovation in agriculture that leads to healthier food and a lighter environmental footprint. (For […]
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Farm magazines and rural, Midwestern airwaves are full of stories and advertising for the latest herbicide-based solutions for corn and soybean fields infested with multiple, herbicide-tolerant weeds. Perhaps the most challenging is glyphosate-resistant waterhemp. In a March 29, 2017 Farm Industry News story by Willie Vogt entitled “Taking on weed resistance”, weed management experts describe […]
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The new EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, announced March 29, 2017 that the agency will retain the existing registrations of the high-risk insecticide chlorpyrifos (aka Lorsban). Eric Lipton of the New York Times covered the announcement, and the EPA press release and the full text of the decision is posted on the EPA website. As the New York […]
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A chilling overview of the global impacts of pesticide use on human health, the environment, and farming system choices has been issued by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. The special report (available in multiple languages here was delivered to the 34th Session of the Human Rights Council in February 2017. It contains unusually […]
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Among the fake news making the rounds is that organic food is no safer than conventional food because organic farmers use pesticides too. Ken Roseboro debunks many of the “alternate” facts circulating about pesticide use on organic farms in a well-researched story in The Organic and Non-GMO Report. Of course organic farmers have to manage […]
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A team based at the University of Vermont has produced a national map of 139 counties in which wild bee populations are at risk where they are most needed to pollinate the fruits and vegetables most Americans need to eat more of. The red and purple shaded areas of the map below cover several of […]
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Chris DiFonzo, a Michigan State entomologist, has compiled with colleagues a farmer-friendly table of all GE corn traits and trade names. A special feature of the 2017 version of the table is getting a lot of attention – a column designating which insects, including the Southwestern corn borer larvae shown here, may be resistant to […]
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Farmers are bracing for a rough season contending with the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds throughout the Heartland. The collapsing efficacy of genetically engineered (GE), herbicide-resistant (HR) technology coincides with a serious downturn in corn, soybean, and cotton prices. Rising costs for GE-HR seed, the need to markedly intensify herbicide use (driving production costs higher), and […]
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DDT is the chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticide that was developed during World War II and dominated post-war insect pest management for 20+ years. It was the most widely used insecticide in a family of chemistry that included aldrin, dieldrin, toxaphene, chlordane, hepatchor, and a handful of other active ingredients. It was widely regarded as a miracle […]
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