Health

Farmers lack information on seed treatments found to harm pollinators, new paper

Minneapolis– The effectiveness and costs of pesticide seed coatings are not being made clear to farmers, according to a new paper by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Over the last decade, a small handful of seed companies often require or add neonicotinoid (neonic) seed coatings, particularly for genetically engineered crops.

Pollinators and the rigged neonic seed market

Farmers are no different from any buyer – they want to know what they’re buying, how much it costs and its expected performance.

Unknown Benefits, Hidden Costs

There is a growing body of science directly implicating neonicotinoid (neonic) pesticides in the significant decline of bees and other pollinators.1 Neonicotinoids are applied in multiple ways in many parts of agriculture and horticulture, but are most prevalent as a seed coating material for agricultural commodity crops

On World Water Day: Let’s work for people, not corporations

Twenty three years ago, in 1993, the first annual World Water Day was an occasion to draw attention to water related challenges around the globe.  It will be observed again tomorrow, with a focus on sustainable water governance.

Tell the Obama Administration: “Protect our health and our Planet, not Big Food’s profits!”

Americans are much more vocal today than we have ever been about the kind of food we eat, where it comes from and what it does to our bodies and our planet.

Babe’s new diet: Nanomaterials in animal feed

How much would you pay for a pork chop that was two percent leaner? Would you eat such a pork chop if nanoscale minerals were mixed into the hog feed to achieve that two percent reduction?

Synthetically modified organisms aren’t “natural” at all

Synthetic biology is “Still in [the] Uncharted Waters of Public Opinion,” according to a recent focus group study by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. That’s not surprising since the technology involved sounds like something out of science fiction.