"Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit"
"In large sections of America's farmland, new strains of weeds are making life miserable for farmers. They've developed resistance to the country's No. 1 weedkiller, Roundup. Now farmers face a choice: Do they go for yet another kill-all-the-weeds chemical, or go back to more complicated, labor-intensive ways of fighting weeds?"
"Every day, inspectors in white hats and coats take up positions at every one of the nation's slaughterhouses, eyeballing the hanging carcasses of cows and chickens as they shuttle past on elevated rails, looking for bruises, tumors and signs of contamination."
"U.S. officials said on Friday they would offer higher payments to certain owners of environmentally sensitive farm land if they idle it in a conservation program instead of using it to grow crops."
"Monsanto Co., the world's largest seed company, has won the dismissal of a lawsuit by growers of organic crops ... seeking to have its patents for genetically altered seeds invalidated."
"Scary antibiotic-resistant infections aren’t just lurking in the hospital anymore. They’re in gyms, at the beach, and increasingly, on the farm."
This year's Farm Bill deliberations have been less transparent than ever before. In that spirit, SEJ's WatchDog shares a backgrounder, published by the Federation of American Scientists, on the 2012 Farm Bill done by the Congressional Research Service — which keeps their taxpayer-funded reports secret from the public.
"TEMPLE, N.H. -- A mild winter across the Northeast is injecting extra uncertainty into maple syrup season, but many producers say they'll just go with the flow, whenever it starts."
"After years of taking farmers to court to assert their patent rights, agri-giant Monsanto Co.is being sued by farmers. Lots of farmers."
"The U.S. health regulator on Thursday declined a request by orange juice producers to allow a higher tolerance of a banned fungicide in juice imports, a decision that will force Brazil to stop exporting concentrated orange juice to the United States."