Agriculture

"Three common neonicotinoid insecticides were ruled "likely to adversely affect" thousands of endangered species and critical habitats, according to draft biological evaluations released by EPA on Thursday, Aug. 26."

"Heads up: There's an unwelcome visitor in Pennsylvania and officials are urging residents to take caution. The spotted lanternfly has been moving in and threatening agriculture and trees, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture."

"As climate change brings longer, more destructive fire seasons, the wine industry scrambles to protect vineyards from the dreaded taint of smoke."

"Water cuts aimed at farmers amid the West’s megadrought have set the stage for bitter legal and political fights over one of the most overlooked water uses—the right of water to remain in streams to sustain fish and endangered species, lawyers say."

"Numbers of the country’s carrion-loving birds dropped by over 97% in the 1990s. Now, a successful breeding scheme is giving them a boost".

"There was barely a buzz in the air as John Miller pried the lid off of a crate, one of several "bee boxes" stacked in eight neat piles beside a cattle grazing pasture outside Gackle, North Dakota. 'Nothing,' Miller said as he lifted a plastic hive frame from the box, squirming with only a few dozen bees."

"A divided federal appeals court on Thursday affirmed that parts of Kansas' "ag-gag" law - among the first laws in the nation restricting undercover animal rights activists - violates the First Amendment, upholding a permanent prohibition against the state enforcing the provisions."

"Herbicides are losing the war — and agriculture might never be the same again."

"The Environmental Protection Agency will ban the use of a pesticide widely applied on food crops but linked to neurological damage in children, reversing one of the Trump administration’s most fraught public health decisions."