Agriculture

"The Monsanto Company agreed to pay the Environmental Protection Agency a $2.5 million penalty for selling mislabeled bags of genetically engineered seed."

Just as harmful to the Gulf of Mexico as the BP oil spill is the annual "dead zone" whose increase in recent years has been driven by nitrogen fertilizer used to produce corn ethanol in the U.S. heartland.

"California pesticide regulators plan to approve a new agricultural chemical called methyl iodide for the state's coastal strawberry fields, allowing levels of exposure that the state's own experts say will put farmworkers and bystanders at risk."

"Earth-friendly perennial grain crops, which grow with less fertilizer, herbicide, fuel, and erosion than grains planted annually, could be available in two decades, according to researchers writing in the current issue of the journal Science."

"Scientists say methyl bromide threatens the ozone layer, and its alternative, methyl iodide, is a threat to workers and their families."

"The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a federal judge had erred in prohibiting the planting of Monsanto’s genetically modified alfalfa seed until a federal government agency completed a detailed environmental review."

Small-scale farmers who want to grow and sell meat locally have been hampered by federal regulation of slaughterhouses. Now mobile slaughterhouses are helping those farmers get back in the game.

"Federal officials are launching efforts today in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia to enlist farmers in targeted watersheds in a concerted effort to curb pollution running off their land."

"Organic food from China, like tea and frozen broccoli, has increasingly found its way onto American store shelves, typically emblazoned with the green 'U.S.D.A. organic' seal also found on food grown in this country. ... Now serious questions about certification in China have been raised by the United States Agriculture Department."