Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/tag/epa/)
Corteva Agriscience – the main manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that has been linked to brain damage in children – said it would stop its production by the end of this year.
Five years ago, the owner of Missouri’s largest peach farm started noticing damage to his orchard. A year later, Bader Farms estimated a loss of more than 30,000 trees.A lawsuit filed by the farm in 2016 alleges Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, and herbicide maker BASF Corp. are to blame because the weed killer drifted from other fields. Both companies deny the allegations.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, reached a settlement Monday with Frontier Ag Inc. concerning three facilities in Kansas that were violating the Clean Air Act in Oct. 2018.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo - If farmers follow the label, small amounts of dicamba may move off of the crops where they are applied, but there is “no way” that movement could hurt neighboring crops, according to video testimony from Monsanto officials in federal court on Friday. The testimony wrapped up the first week of a trial in a civil lawsuit filed by Bader Farms, the largest peach farm in Missouri, against BASF and Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018. Bader Farms alleges that drift from the herbicide dicamba led to its 1,000-acre peach farm no longer being sustainable. Bader also alleges the companies released their dicamba-related products knowing they would harm other crops.
BASF and Bayer deny the allegations, blaming the crop damage on farmers making illegal applications, weather events, disease and other issues. The companies are defending themselves in court, and the trial is expected to last at least two weeks.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. — In February 2015, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considering whether to approve a new Monsanto weed killer anticipated to be sprayed on tens of millions of acres of crops, many researchers wanted to see how the herbicide would work in the field. University researchers had been requesting the tests in order to ease farmers’ fears about crop damage, and Monsanto scientists wanted to conduct tests to help draft recommendations for farmers who would use the pesticide. But knowing federal regulators were paying attention to the new weed killer's potential to contaminate other fields, the company decided to “pull back” on testing to allow dicamba to have a “clean slate,” according to an email from Dr. Tina Bhakta, who, in her role as global chemistry expansion lead for Monsanto, was responsible for obtaining EPA registration for the weed killer. The email was included in Bhakta’s video testimony Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in a civil lawsuit filed by Bader Farms, the largest peach farm in the state, against German agribusiness giants BASF and Bayer, which bought St.
According to a well-presented American Farm Bureau analysis released in October, U.S. farm income in 2019 will reach $88 billion, or the highest net farm income since 2014’s $92 billion, but it will still be a third lower than the record high in 2013.
The state's lack of investment in the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is putting citizens at increased risk of public health issues, according to a report released by a group of experts on Tuesday.
The current large farms, utilizing far fewer farms than in the past has created population loss that threatens scores of small towns that sprouted on the prairie in a different time, when larger numbers of small farmers depended on them.
“The egg business has undergone massive changes in the last 45 years. Once predominantly represented by such small family farms, it began to shift heavily toward industrialization and more vertically integrated systems, according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center (AGMRC). Where once a flock of 400 laying hens was the norm, industrial flocks today can top 5 million hens.”
Later this month – April 22 to be exact – the newly minted conservative U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media.