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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Viewpoint: Eliminating pesticides from farming isn’t realistic—or desirable
In about 1980, I visited several International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) research sites in Mexico. The trip included ...
Kenya, Ethiopia show neighboring Uganda how to revive its dying cotton industry with pest-tolerant technology
Cotton, once a cash cow in Uganda where growers aspired to outcompete each other in the acreage covered and income ...
Video: Biochemist Myles Power dresses down Indian anti-GMO philosopher and ‘green revolution’ critic Vandana Shiva
Anti-GMO activists have attacked innovation in agriculture since the start of the Green Revolution in the mid-20th century. Assuming everyone ...
Glyphosate cancer lawsuits ‘needlessly alarm’ the public abut a ‘critical farming tool’
[A] federal district judge presiding over class-action litigation in California [recently] made a troubling decision that will reverberate across the ...
‘Factory farms wreck the environment’ and other myths farmers are tired of hearing
Here are [some] of the biggest myths spread on social media and in the mainstream media, and some stuff we ...
EPA investigates illegal use of dicamba as it mulls herbicide’s re-approval
Despite being banned for in-crop use this summer in Arkansas, dicamba is a suspect in damage to thousands of acres ...
Even as managed honeybee colonies hit record numbers, another threat to their health is identified: Mystery viruses
The quest to figure out what's behind honeybee deaths has become as much a political question as a scientific one. Recent ...
Chemical giant Bayer challenging Europe’s neonicotinoids ban
Bayer will appeal...the recent ruling of the General Court of the European Union (EU) to ban neonicotinoids. [T]he German multinational pharmaceutical company ...
Monsanto, expert witness spar over validity of IARC’s glyphosate-cancer finding
An agricultural economist refuted Monsanto's assertion that the International Agency for Research on Cancer "cherry picked" studies to conclude that Monsanto's ...
CRISPR: How gene editing could provide clean water, cut pesticide use and protect the environment
CRISPR has been making headlines for its potential to treat or prevent diseases. But medicine isn’t the only science where ...
Viewpoint: Activists fret about neonics, but viruses are the real threat to bees
While environmentalists raise millions of dollars insisting they will get targeted pesticides (e.g. neonicotinoids) banned to save bees that aren't ...
Questioning EU neonics ban: Pesticides are ‘not a curse but a blessing’
Plant protection products and green genetic engineering [tools] are not a curse but a blessing, says Dr. Klaus Schlüter, a ...
Monsanto defends its internal testing in Roundup cancer trial
A Monsanto scientist denied on [July 24th] that the company based its assertions that its Roundup weed killer doesn’t cause ...
Several European Union nations rebuked over efforts to sidestep neonicotinoid ban
At least two EU countries continue to use emergency exemptions to sidestep a ban on pesticides that scientists believe harm ...
Are farmers struggling to control weeds in the face of dicamba herbicide restrictions?
If there is one thorn in the side of Missouri farmer Tommy Riley, it’s pigweed. ...Riley told members of the ...
Viewpoint: Why the French media still defend Séralini’s discredited GMO rat tumor study
In recent months, the [French] media has had little interest in reporting the results of three large-scale studies that reviewed and confirmed the safety ...
Video: Cancer patient testifies against Monsanto in Roundup weed killer trial
It is the first time St. Louis-based Monsanto Company has had to defend one of its products, Roundup, in front ...
Soybean farmer sues dicamba manufacturers, seeks injunction on sale of popular herbicide
A northeast Nebraska farmer has sued herbicide manufacturers, saying his neighbors’ use of the company products damaged his soybean crop ...
Kazakhstan ‘goes organic’ to compete in $90 billion non-GMO food market
Kazakhstan is tapping growing consumer demand for organic crops to help it better compete in the food-export market. The country ...
Roundup trial: Monsanto lawyers grill expert witness for omitting key details around alleged glyphosate-cancer link
Lawyers for Monsanto attempted on [July 20th] to undermine a Chicago oncologist’s opinion that its Roundup weed killer caused a ...
As fears of ‘rogue’ GMO wheat ease, Japan lifts ban on Canadian imports
One day [in] July [2017], a contractor noticed a few stalks of wheat growing by the side of an access ...
Amid activist claims Germany colluded with Big Ag to soften glyphosate regulations, Europe may switch evaluation responsibility to France
Monsanto’s quest to keep its controversial weedkiller Roundup on the European market faces another challenge. The European Commission is pushing for ...
Despite anti-GMO ‘whispering,’ Bangladesh says ‘science-based information’ will guide its biotech policy
Bt eggplant, or brinjal as it’s known in Bangladesh, is the first genetically engineered food crop to be successfully introduced ...
Viewpoint: There’s no one ‘butterfly-killing bogeyman’ to blame for declining monarch populations
“When you look at the 25-year trend, it seems quite dire,” [Anurag] Agrawal, a Cornell University professor of ecology and ...
Could commercial herbicides made from fungi bridge sustainability gap between organic and conventional agriculture?
Nature is not just out to kill us, it is out to kill itself, in the interest of surviving over ...
Sri Lankan government lifts glyphosate ban to aid tea growers ‘plagued’ by weeds, slumping production
The [Sri Lankan] government has lifted [a two-year] ban on glyphosate for all crops throughout the country. ... The Government ...
Viewpoint: German farmers say neonicotinoid ban throws them back into ‘plant protection stone age,’ forces use of ‘dangerous’ pesticides
With the ban on the three most effective insecticides [Imidacloprid, Clothianidin and Thiamethoxam] for the protection of beet seeds, beet ...
