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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UN Commission report promoting organics, critical of pesticides challenged as biased
A recent UN report grabbed headlines for dismissing as ‘myth’ the notion that pesticides are necessary to feed the world ...
Quest for higher yields is enemy of biodiversity on farms — both conventional and organic
What kind of agriculture most benefits biodiversity? In recent years, few questions have animated conservationists and land-use scientists more than ...
Fact check: South African political party misleads about glyphosate’s cancer risk
Calling for a probe into “a possible crime against humanity”, a South African political party wants to halt the use ...
Honey bee defenses could be strengthened through genes linked to stress resilience
A core set of genes involved in the responses of honey bees to multiple diseases caused by viruses and parasites ...
Talking Biotech: Habitat loss, parasitic mites — not GMOs, pesticides — prime culprits in butterfly, bee losses
GMOs and pesticides are often blamed for pollinator losses. Recent research indicates that other factors are likely more important, says ...
Infographic: How GMO insect-resistant Bt crops work
[Editor's note: Karl Haro von Mogel earned his Ph.D. in plant breeding and plant genetics at UW-Madison, with a minor ...
Insect-resistant GMO cowpeas could be available to Ghanaian farmers in 2018
Ongoing field tests on genetically modified cowpea (Bt cowpea) have produced successful results and will be ready for commercialisation and ...
Buying organic food to avoid pesticides? You may want to reconsider
Do you seek out organic fruits and vegetables to avoid those on the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list, fearful ...
Wrong message? Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen ‘pesticide-soaked’ fruits, vegetables to avoid may make us less healthy
Regardless of whether you’re a parent, an environmentalist, or just a plain old shopper, chances are you’ve gazed out over the supermarket ...
Organic 2.0: Biodynamic farming gains popularity in the US, but could it feed everyone?
National retailers like Whole Foods are stocking more biodynamic brands – but critics are questioning biodynamic farming’s ability to feed ...
European farmers caught in middle of political battles over pesticide bans, biotech mergers
[Editor's note: Robert de Graeff is senior policy officer for the European Landowners’ Organization.] It is fair to say that pesticides ...
Video: Fruit, vegetable shelf life extended by spray made from plant extracts
[Editor's note: Watch the video here.] “We use food to preserve food,” [Apeel Sciences CEO James] Rogers said. They start ...
Pakistan nears 5-year deal with Monsanto for GMO cotton, despite opposition
The Punjab [provincial] government [in Pakistan] is finalising a deal with Monsanto — a leading producer of genetically modified (GM) seed — to ...
Switchgrass biofuel? New gene that makes plant sterile could ease contamination concerns
Switchgrass has been lauded as a promising source of biofuel.... Genetically modifying switchgrass could boost crop yields and its commercial ...
Green genes: Germany’s top organic researcher says environmentalists should embrace CRISPR editing
[Editor's note: The following is a Q&A with Urs Niggli, director of the Research Institute for Organic Agriculture in Germany ...
Why hasn’t India embraced GM food as it did Green Revolution technologies?
[Editor's note: Vivian Fernandes is editor of Smart Indian Agriculture, a website devoted to promoting modern practices in agriculture including use ...
How CRISPR gene editing can speed up domestication to make crops more sustainable, nutritious
Out of the more than 300,000 plant species in existence, only three species – rice, wheat, and maize – account ...
Getting Risk Right: Geoffrey Kabat’s book asks, “are we afraid of the wrong things?”
[Editor's note: Geoffrey Kabat is a cancer researcher and an epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.] Why do things that ...
Can farmers reduce pesticide use but maintain expected yields? Study of French farms says yes
A team of researchers with members affiliated with several institutions in France has found that lowering the amount of pesticides ...
New EPA head Scott Pruit poised to challenge ‘politics driven’ farm chemical regulations
[Editor’s note: Henry Miller is a physician and molecular biologist, and was the founding director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology.] ...
Massachusetts mulls restrictions on neonicotinoid pesticides over bee safety concerns
A type of pesticide many beekeepers blame for mass bee die-offs would come under tighter regulation under a bill filed ...
UK farmers push back against ‘pseudo-science attack’ on herbicide glyphosate
Hundreds of farmers across Britain are coming together in a concerted effort to show politicians and the public why glyphosate ...
When Celebrity And Science Collide: Hollywood And The Anti-Biotechnology Food Movement
Celebrityhood does not equate with science knowledge. The opinions of music and media stars are no more relevant to the ...
Tanzania’s first ever GMO field trial: Drought-tolerant, insect-resistant corn ‘shows promising results’
Tanzania's first-ever genetically-modified crop trial was planted only a 30-minute drive from the capital. ... A year ago the Tanzanian ...
Only 1 percent of US farmland is certified organic. Why aren’t more farmers making the switch?
There are two stories to tell about the state of organic agriculture in the US. The first is a success ...
5 non-GMO ‘frankenfoods’ that can carry organic label
One of the most common food myths of our time is that GMOs are “frankenfoods” while heirloom or organic varieties ...
How to stop fungi that infect, destroy crops? Target their ‘friends’
By itself, [the pathogenic fungus Rhizoctonia solani] is responsible for the turfgrass disease called brown patch, sheath blight within rice, ...
