Corporate actions happens for many reasons. Sometimes they are tied to economic shifts, other times ephemeral political winds are a trigger or as we all know technological revolutions like transgenics can cause major upheavals. This week two major agribusinesses have taken actions to correct some serious wrongs. Mind you, they are not admitting anything, they’re …
Month: March 2020
A 2016 University of Illinois Plant Clinic herbicide resistance report shows that glyphosate herbicide resistance and PPO Inhibitor herbicide resistance have both reached epic proportions across the Midwest of the United States. Herbicide-resistant weeds are symptomatic of a bigger problem: an outdated system of farming that relies on planting huge acreages of the same crop …
California is fighting in the courts to be the first state to require Monsanto to label its popular weed-killer Roundup as a possible cancer hazard. Monsanto said California officials illegally based their decision for carrying the warnings on an international health organization based in France. The corporation’s attorney Trenton Norris argued in court that the …
Evidence reveals Monsanto’s hand may indeed have been in the EPA’s regulatory cookie jar. The revelations are contained in a court filing brought by more than 50 people suing Monsanto claiming the company’s glyphosate based herbicide branded Roundup gave them or their loved ones non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) after exposure to the herbicide. The filing includes …
California regulators stated that glyphosate will appear on the state’s list of cancerous chemicals beginning July 7, 2017. That means new labels may be appearing as soon as next year in California that include a cancer warning on Roundup and other glyphosate-containing weed killers. The final say on whether Roundup will get a cancer warning …
Today half of the world’s population of honeybees have disappeared. Not only are the honeybees vanishing, but the entire interdependent chain that links animal to plant life is being disrupted. As honeybees disappear, so do many naturally grown fruits and vegetables. A sad day indeed for humans. But aside from the food they pollinate, they …
From the University of Maryland, a 2016 study focussing on the honeybee colonies’ exposome, a term traditionally used in cancer research. It’s defined as the measure of all exposures over an individual’s lifetime and how those exposures relate to health. In their investigation, researchers did not look at individual honeybees but instead treated the colony …
In 2015, Bayer CropScience scored a big win on both sides of the Canada/US borders. That’s when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it completed the registration of Bayer’s new pesticide, flupyradifurone. The chemical spray can now be marketed as an alternative to neonicotinoid pesticides and “safer for bees.” Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory …
As residents living on this beautiful blue planet, we are all interconnected and nothing exemplifies this more than Earth’s ecosystems. They are humanity’s life support system. These delicate environs depend on pollinators to regenerate finely tuned elements to ensure continuity. Whether mammal, animal or insect, should these pollinators disappear, the impact on humanity would be …
Neonicotinoids (NNIs) are the most widely used insecticides in the world. In theory, they are the perfect pesticide, coating the seeds of a crop so the growing plant is seeped in their poison, killing any munching marauder. No sloppy spraying, no residue, no toxic runoff into nearby streams – according to the marketing speak. In …