American Oversight and the Environmental Working Group (EWG) today launched a joint investigation into the March 29 decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the findings of the agency’s own experts as well as the broader scientific community, which had concluded that chlorpyrifos […]
By David R. Montgomery One of the biggest modern myths about agriculture is that organic farming is inherently sustainable. It can be, but it isn’t necessarily. After all, soil erosion from chemical-free tilled fields undermined the Roman Empire and other ancient societies around the world. Other agricultural myths hinder recognizing the potential to restore degraded […]
In one of his first major decisions as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, Scott Pruitt sided with the pesticide lobby over scientists Wednesday in an eleventh-hour decision to abort the agency’s proposal to ban chlorpyrifos—an insecticide that at small doses can harm children’s brains and nervous systems—from use on food crops. Pruitt and the […]
By Cyrus Sutton Island Earth is the story of a young indigenous scientist’s journey through both sides of the GMO battle in Hawaii. Groomed to work for Monsanto, Cliff Kapono had a lot to consider over the past few years. His ancestral ways of farming fed a similar population than what inhabits the island today […]
The state of California has finalized its decision designating glyphosate, the main ingredient in the pesticide Roundup, as a known human carcinogen under the state’s Proposition 65. The listing was prompted by the World Health Organization’s finding that glyphosate is a “probable” human carcinogen. The World Health Organization’s cancer research agency is widely considered to […]
By Genna Reed Emails unsealed in a California lawsuit last week reveal that agribusiness giant Monsanto engaged in activities aimed at undermining efforts to evaluate a potential link between glyphosate—the active ingredient of the company’s popular herbicide Roundup—and cancer. The documents reveal the company’s plans to seed the scientific literature with a ghostwritten study and […]
The majority of European Union governments voted against a proposal to authorize two new strains of genetically modified (GMO) maize today. The two varieties of maize, DuPont Pioneer’s 1507 and Syngenta’s Bt11, kill insects by producing its own pesticide and is also resistant Bayer’s glufosinate herbicide. If approved, the varieties would be the first new […]
By Carey Gillam The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has quietly dropped a plan to start testing food for residues of glyphosate, the world’s most widely used weed killer and key ingredient in Monsanto’s branded Roundup herbicides. The agency spent the last year coordinating with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Food and […]
Farmers, conservation groups and food and farm justice organizations stood up today to protest against the contamination of rural communities, our food supply and the environment by filing a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration. The groups are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under new administrator Scott Pruitt for approving Dow AgroScience’s Enlist […]