Agriculture

"A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a 2018 jury verdict that led to awarding monetary damages to neighbors of a North Carolina industrial hog operation for smells and noise they said made living nearby unbearable."

"The new group will try to advance climate policies, even as some of its members are likely to clash. Critics say the group’s efforts won’t go far enough."

"An agreement announced Tuesday paves the way for the largest dam demolition in U.S. history, a project that promises to reopen hundreds of miles of waterway along the Oregon-California border to salmon that are critical to tribes but have dwindled to almost nothing in recent years."

"Farmers, rural shopkeepers and Mississippi politicians from both major parties are speaking out to support a proposed flood control project that would pump water from parts of the south Delta. Environmental groups remain opposed to the Yazoo Backwater Project."

"More than 15,000 mink in the United States have died of the coronavirus since August, and authorities are keeping about a dozen farms under quarantine while they investigate the cases, state agriculture officials said."

"In one of the day's biggest political flips, House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) solidly lost his bid for reelection after a 30-year career in Congress, and a few other seats on the committee were either lost or in jeopardy for Democrats."

"Vice-President Hamilton Mourao on Tuesday defended Brazil’s environmental policies, saying the country was working to protect the Amazon rain forest and adding nothing will change if Democrat Joe Biden wins the U.S. presidential election."

"Amazon fires this year are seriously threatening Indigenous territories in which isolated uncontacted Indigenous groups make their homes. Brazil has an estimated 100+ isolated Indigenous groups living within its borders, more than any other Amazonian nation."

"Some of the most popular products of biotechnology — corn and cotton plants that have been genetically modified to fend off insects — are no longer offering the same protection from those bugs. Scientists say that the problem results from farmers overusing the crops, and are pushing for new regulations.

These crops were the original genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. They weren't the first ones invented, but they were the first to be widely embraced by farmers, starting in the late 1990s.