Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/category/uncategorized/)
Chlorpyrifos - scientists say there is no acceptable dose to avoid brain damage. Its use is banned in several European countries. Yet its residues are found in fruit baskets, on dinner plates, and in human urine samples from all over Europe. Now producers are pushing for a renewed EU-approval - perhaps in vain.
A Midwest restaurant is buying Calyno™ High Oleic Soybean Oil from Calyxt that fashions itself as a “consumer-centric, food- and agriculture-focused company.” It is also the first commercial use of a gene-edited food in the U.S.
Enter the National Cattlemen's Beef
Association and the highly anticipated joint agreement between the Food and Drug Administration and United States Agriculture Department over oversight of
cell-based meat technology.
The deal – released last month – calls for FDA and USDA to each do what they do best. FDA will regulate cell collection, cell banks, and differentiation.
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service says in 2018 there have been dozens of recalls involving millions of pounds of sausage, calzones and chicken whatnots contaminated with metal, plastic and other foreign non-food bits of dangerous materials.
Costco sells its rotisserie chicken at the back of its stores at a loss to lure customers into the story to buy other things. Up until now those chickens by and large have come from Big Ag poultry producers like Tyson, Pilgrims Pride, and Perdue. But Costco is now bringing chicken production in house.
The Environmental Protection Agency is considering limiting a regulation states use to protect farmers and residents from plant damage caused by a controversial pesticide known as dicamba. The EPA announced Tuesday it’s re-evaluating how it reviews requests under section 24(c) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). States and other local municipalities submit Special Local Needs (SLN) requests to the agency when additional considerations are needed for using a pesticide in a more localized area. In recent years, states have used this to rule to limit the use of dicamba, a chemical that has proven useful in controlling weeds resistant to other pesticides, but that has also damaged trees, non-resistance row crops and other sensitive plants. On March 1, the Illinois Department of Agriculture announced that no dicamba could be applied to soybean fields after June 30.
The latest findings from a study of drinking water wells and their surroundings finds manure from cows that is stored or spread on farm fields poses the highest risk for certain contaminants.
Problems the Iowa State Auditor’s office identified in a 2012 audit and subsequent reports and recommendations for investigating Iowa’s pesticide use violations still linger years later.
With the mid-term elections less than a week away we ask are these pragmatic farmers optimistic about the direction of all things ag over the past year.
As Dave Dickey writes, U.S. grain and oilseed farmers, specialty crop growers and pork producers are hoping that China and U.S. leadership pull back their reins on the potential for a full-blown trade war that could cripple U.S. gross domestic product.