Agriculture

Climate change and warmer temperatures are already hurting agriculture in California.

"With the worst drought in half a century driving feed prices sky high, pork producers are facing an untenable choice: drain their savings and gamble on a better future, or sell off their herd and get out of the business altogether."

"Global grain production is expected to hit record levels this year, despite the drought that gripped most of the Midwest, the Worldwatch Institute said in a report released yesterday."

The biosafety level 3 facility on Plum Island in Long Island Sound has been converted from biowarfare to studying animal diseases, harmless to humans, that could come into the U.S. from abroad. Some of those diseases could devastate U.S. flocks or herds. The secrecy and message-control surrounding the facility is intense. But is the secrecy meant to protect the U.S. public or to protect the financial interests of the agriculture industry?

"British scientists have shot down a study on declining honeybee populations that triggered a French ban on a pesticide made by Swiss agrochemicals group Syngenta."

"A US pharmaceutical company is set to introduce a controversial new genetically modified corn to help farmers fight resistant weeds. Dow Agrosciences says its new GM product will use a chemical that was once a component of the Vietnam war defoliant, Agent Orange."

"LONDON -- In a study that prompted sharp criticism from other experts, French scientists said on Wednesday that rats fed on Monsanto's genetically modified corn or exposed to its top-selling weedkiller suffered tumours and multiple organ damage."

"Some of the world's biggest fertilizer companies are banking that the aftermath of the worst U.S. drought in 56 years will boost sales, as U.S. farmers seek to cash in on high crop prices."

"An apple a day might keep the doctor away, but what do you do when there are no apples? It's a question western Michigan's apple growers are dealing with this season after strange weather earlier in the year decimated the state's apple cultivation."