Chemical Controversies
Pesticides are substances that prevent, destroy, repel, or reduce the severity of pests. Pests are living things that occur where they are not wanted or that cause damage to humans, crops, or animals. Pests can be insects, rodents, unwanted plants, bacteria, viruses, or different types of fungus. Pesticides can vary in how toxic they are to humans and the environment. Some are persistent in the environment, animals, and birds, lasting for years; others break down soon after they are released. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grants licenses, or registrations, to pesticides that it has found do not pose unreasonable risks to human health and the environment; it has registered at least 865 pesticides, which are used in thousands of pesticide products.
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USDA considers release of GM moths to control broccoli pest, GM virus to stop citrus greening
Diamondback moths are a global pest of cruciferous crops such as broccoli, Brussel sprouts and cabbage. On April 18, USDA ...
‘Shockumentary’: How to spot fear-based movies about food and farming
It seems as though every year a food “shockumentary” comes out (GMO OMG, Forks Over Knives, Food Inc etc). I’ve ...
Farmers could control rice harvest timing with strain that flowers after fungicide application
A new strain of rice that flowers within a certain period of time after being sprayed with commercial chemicals commonly ...
Dow Chemical asks Trump administration to ‘set aside’ government studies pesticide maker says are flawed
Dow Chemical is pushing a Trump administration open to scrapping regulations to ignore the findings of federal scientists who point ...
Did Bill Nye err when discussing Monsanto, GMOs in new Netflix series?
Bill Nye comes out swinging in the first season of Bill Nye Saves the World, his new Netflix series. ...
Sweet success: Genes identified that could lead to sucrose-boosting GM sugarcane
Scientists in Brazil are taking steps towards genetically modifying sugarcane so it produces more sucrose naturally, looking to eventually boost ...
International Monsanto Tribunal: Fake trial distracts from real food, farming problems
[Editor's note: Kavin Senapathy is an author, public speaker and science advocate.] The verdict I predicted has landed—agri-giant Monsanto has ...
Funding for USDA’s National Organic Program tripled under Obama. What will Trump do with it?
[Editor's note: Mischa Popoff is a policy advisor at The Heartland Institute, and is the author of Is it Organic? Jay Lehr ...
Costly delays: Australia’s sluggish adoption of GMO crops carries a hefty price tag
The nation lost out on $431 million in economic gains, while also missing a chance to cut greenhouse gas emissions ...
Are neonicotinoid insecticide seed treatments endangering wild bees?
Environmentalists often blame neonicotinoid insecticides for the plight of wild bee species. But the science doesn't support this hypothesis, and ...
Why I changed my mind about the need to feed my kids organic food
[Editor's note: Jenny Splitter is a writer, storyteller and mother of two.] A few years ago I learned that most ...
EU food safety chief: Critics of glyphosate safety finding are ‘playing politics’, undermining science
Politicians who attack the EU agency that ruled the weedkiller glyphosate probably does not cause cancer are in danger of ...
Wide range, high levels of pesticides found in apple orchard honeybee colonies
Honeybees - employed to pollinate crops during the blooming season - encounter danger due to lingering and wandering pesticides, according ...
How US NGOs are exploiting Europe’s precautionary chemophobia to ban glyphosate and GMOs
Environmental NGOs have a harder time influencing the evidence-based US regulatory system, so they're taking the fight to Europe — ...
‘Wouldn’t help much’: What would a ban on neonicotinoid insecticides do for bee health?
“Everyone knows insecticides can kill bees,” says honeybee biologist Francis Ratnieks at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. “The ...
Can you be a skeptic and anti-GMO?
[Editor’s note: Myles Power is a chemist in Manchester, England.] Over the past year, I have been giving a talk to ...
‘Thirsty plants’ to land conservation: How biotechnology helps address developing world’s agricultural challenges
[Editor's note: Sarah Evanega holds a doctorate in plant biology from Cornell University, where she is the director of the Alliance ...
Will corporate mergers in agriculture spur innovation?
[Editor's note: Ed Wiederstein is a former president of the Iowa Farm Bureau and a farmer in Iowa.] When funding was more ...
‘Non-GMO’ ranked near top, ‘organic’ at bottom in study of consumer meat preferences
For many consumers, buying a gallon of milk is much more complex than finding the preferred fat content and expiration ...
Will California break with EPA and ban chlorpyrifos pesticide?
Approximately one million pounds of chlorpyrifos—about 20 percent of what’s used nationwide—are applied annually in California to dozens of food ...
‘Glyphosate is vital’: Scottish farmers launch campaign to support herbicide’s reauthorization
As the EU decision on whether or not to re-authorise the herbicide glyphosate approaches, a farming union has called on ...
‘Backlash’ against GMOs may be more about corporate power than science
Much of the backlash against GMOs is less about genetic engineering and more about the business practices of the corporations ...
There are no GM oranges — So why is Tropicana deceiving consumers with Non-GMO label?
[Editor's note: Greg Jaffe is the Director of the Project on Biotechnology for the Center for Science in the Public ...
March for Science: Agony and ecstasy of a Malaysian agricultural biotechnology science communicator
In many ways, communicating science can be more difficult than scientific research. As advances in biotechnology speed up, scientists around ...
Video: Has organic farming ‘ideology’ spread through the scientific community?
[Editor's note: Andrew McGuire is an agronomist at Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources.] At the core ...
Sorghum resistant to herbicide, drought, pests in advanced development
For the past several years sorghum research has lagged behind that of corn and soybeans, but that could soon change ...
Bee experts say ditch Cheerios’ wildflower seeds, plant native ones to fight pollinator decline
[Editor's note: Jenna Gallegos is a 5th year plant biology PhD student at the University of California, Davis.] Honeybees are ...
