Yes, you heard us right. Robotics is coming to agriculture. Companies around the world are racing to develop new tools in this rapidly growing field. China just launched a seven-year program to develop “autonomous agriculture” (Minter, 2018), and organic farmers in Australia are getting a $250,000 government grant to use robotic weeders on their organic […]
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Fall application of glyphosate is getting a closer look in Canada. The “Keep it Clean” campaign, a joint operation of a trio of industry groups (Canola Council of Canada, Cereals Canada, and Pulse Canada), educates growers about pesticide residue limits and other guidelines, with a particular focus on export markets. One of their main focus […]
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Hawaiis’ governor David Ige has signed into law a ban on the controversial insecticide chlorpyrifos, which has been linked to “serious health risks,” including developmental impacts in children, lung cancer, and immune disorders in farm workers. (For more on the health impacts of chlorpyrifos, see the Managing Weeds for Healthy Kids project bibliography.) Pruitt’s EPA rejected […]
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On Thursday, June 7, 2018, Bayer’s $66 billion purchase of Monsanto will close, and the world’s most powerful pesticide, seed, and ag biotechnology company will be born. Within months, according to Bayer’s CEO, the Monsanto name will be dropped, and for good reasons. This is very big news in the world of big ag. News […]
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In the second of two talks in Iowa this week, Hygeia’s founder Dr. Charles Benbrook shared our latest dynamic presentation, “Managing Weeds for Healthy Kids: Emerging Challenges for Physicians, Families, and Farmers” at the Ames Public Library in Ames, IA. This presentation takes a closer look at the wealth of data demonstrating a clear rising […]
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Dr. Charles Benbrook attended the Pesticides and Public Health in Iowa 2018 Networking Meeting in Iowa City on May 14, 2018 to present the latest science on the health impacts of rising herbicide use in their state. The meeting, hosted by the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health, the University of Northen Iowa, and Iowa […]
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Ken Roseboro’s May 11, 2018 story in Civil Eats is a sober reminder that pesticides are toxic, some people have been exposed to levels that almost certainly trigger or contribute to disease, and that the most worrisome exposure episodes often occur as a result of unusual circumstances. “These Farmers Switched to Organic After Pesticides Made […]
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The Washington State Department of Ecology has once again denied the use of the neonicotinoid pesticide imidacloprid on coastal shellfish beds, as reported in the Seattle Times. A association of oyster growers based out of Willapa Bay in southwest Washington have been fighting since 2015 to be allowed to use imidacloprid to combat an infestation of burrowing shrimp, […]
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A new study published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences takes some of the mystery out of how aggressive weeds like Palmer amaranth and common waterhemp developed resistance to glyphosate herbicides so quickly. Researchers from Kansas State University have discovered that these pigweeds develop extra-chromosomal circular DNA (eccDNA), genetic material that […]
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On February 6, 2018, the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) sent a senior scientist, Dr. Jennifer Sass, to Capitol Hill to testify before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology during a hearing called “In Defense of Scientific Integrity: Examining the IARC Monograph Programme and Glyphosate Review.” IARC’s “reputation and integrity” have been under […]
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