The pesticide enforcement news today is surreal. Reuters reports on February 15, 2018 that Amazon is paying a $1.2 million fine, because a third-party vendor offering pesticides on Amazon slipped in some foreign-made products not registered by the U.S. EPA. Clearly illegal, clearly a slip up, which Amazon corrected immediately, and forcefully, as clear in […]
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The debate about whose to blame for the dicamba drift crisis of 2016 and 2017 continues, with a new lawsuit filed in federal court last week taking aim at the Environmental Protection Agency for their approval and regulation of the new dicamba formulations. A recent story in the Wisconsin Gazette describes the suit against the EPA […]
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The German media outlet Deutsche Welle, or DW, has produced a compelling video report called “Glyphosate – The Sick Children of Argentina” about the rise of childhood cancers in Argentina, a country where 300 million liters of glyphosate is applied on GMO crops each year, in particular tobacco, cotton, and soybeans. Over the last decade in […]
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Note — Guest blog by Steve Smith, Director of Agriculture, Red Gold, and founder and chairman of the Save Our Crops Coalition (SOCC). It is a lightly edited version of an October 14, 2017 email update sent by Steve Smith to the active members of SOCC. At the request of readers, more information is included on […]
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A highly-respected farm magazine editor, Greg Horstmeier, has called a spade a spade re the unfolding, dicamba crop-damage train wreck occurring across corn-soybean country. This is a must-read piece, because of the important historical context it provides. Horstmeier’s play-by-play of how we got here is a chilling account of how badly farm industry leaders and […]
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The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Environmental Working Group submitted a letter this week to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt condemning the Agency’s decision not to restrict use on the pesticide chlorpyrifos. As this Hygeia’s Blog describes, this decision went against the EPA’s own scientists, who had previously concluded that chlorpyrifos was linked to neurological […]
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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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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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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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