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Guest Blog: Organic Food & Pesticide Residues, One Grower’s Perspective

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Note from Hygeia — We invited Larry Jacobs (far right in photo), founder and president of Del Cabo and Jacobs Farm, to share his experiences in producing organic herbs and vegetables free of non-compliant pesticide residues. His history with illegal pesticides on organic foods spans decades. He has lost crops and markets in his company’s […]

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U.S. Organic Food Exports Set to Double to the EU

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The USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) issued a February 11, 2019 report highlighting information from its post in Berlin. The focus — US exports of mostly fresh organic fruits, vegetables, and milk. Data on processed organic food exports to Europe from the US is not as readily available, so many product categories are not covered […]

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Rising Pesticide Sales in Brazil Appears to Correlate with Colon Cancer Mortality Rates

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Agriculture is the largest sector within the Brazilian economy, and the tropical nation is now the largest pesticide consumer worldwide. Research recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Chemosphere explores whether rising pesticide use is driving dramatic, recent increases in the rate of colon cancer cases in many parts of Brazil. This epidemiology study used pesticide use databases […]

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Washington Organic Apple Boom Continues – WA State Now Produces Estimated 98% of Nationwide Crop

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The apple harvest season is swinging into full gear, and in the NW corner of the country organic apples are growing on more trees than ever before. The Packer, the leading produce-industry newspaper, reports that the volume of Washington State’s organic apple crop will grow by another 30% this year.  Apple orchards now are found throughout […]

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An Open Letter to the CEO of Cibus on Next-Gen Genetic Engineering: Heed Lessons Learned from the Early Days of Ag-Biotech

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The following “Open Letter” has been sent to the CEO of Cibus, a company doing cutting-edge R+D using CRISPR and other gene-editing and gene-silencing technologies (referred to as CRISPR et al. in the letter below). The letter responds to a recent Scientific American Network blog by the CEO of Cibus, Dr. Peter Beetham. His hope, and Cibus’s mission, […]

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Hog Farms in the Carolinas Brace for Hurricane Florence

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As the massive hurricane Florence bears down on the East coast, our thoughts are with anyone (including all the critters) in its path. The immediate concern in the face of such an historic natural disaster is protecting human life from violent winds, storm surge, and widespread flooding. But in the Carolinas, another risk looms. There […]

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“Master Complaints” Filed in Dicamba Drift Damage Federal Lawsuit

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In February, 11 dicamba drift and crop damage lawsuits were consolidated into a federal multi-district litigation (MDL), and transferred to the U.S. District Court in Missouri. These cases represent the first flush of lawsuits related to the dicamba-drift-damage crisis of 2016-2017.  The cases have been filed by farmers from Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, and Missouri. Dicamba-resistant […]

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Jonathan Foley’s Attempt to Slay the “Feed the World” GMO Myth

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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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Glyphosate Paper Honored Among the Top Science Papers of 2016 in “Environmental Health”

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Our paper entitled “Concerns over use of glyphosate-based herbicides and risks associated with exposures: a consensus statement” came out February 17, 2016 in the journal Environmental Health. It was written by John Peterson Myers, Michael N. Antoniou, Bruce Blumberg, Lynn Carroll, Theo Colborn, Lorne G. Everett, Michael Hansen, Philip J. Landrigan, Bruce P. Lanphear, Robin Mesnage, Laura N. Vandenberg, Frederick S. vom Saal, Wade V. Welshons and Charles M. Benbrook. According to BioMed Central, publisher of Environmental Health, our glyphosate […]

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