Has the Egg Industry Finally Cracked?
Twice in 2010, the Humane Society of the United States snuck undercover, camera-toting investigators into factory-scale egg facilities, and both times they revealed savage animal-welfare and...
View ArticleWelcome to the Age of GMO Industry Self-Regulation
As I reported last week, the USDA's recent surprise decision not to regulate genetically modified bluegrass poked yet more holes in an already-porous regime for overseeing GM crops—essentially to the...
View ArticleAnnihilate an Entire Species of Fish, and Other Easy Ways to Really Mess...
So, there's this company called Omega Protein, and it seems intent on catching as much as it possibly can of an obscure, tiny, practically inedible fish called the Atlantic menhaden.From Omega...
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Craving Lamb Chops? Read This First
If your dietary goals include making as much of a mess as possible, I have a recipe for you.First, devote huge swaths of the nation's best farmland to grains and beans in monocrops. Drench them in...
View ArticleSEC Investigates Monsanto's Roundup Biz
While I have been fixating on the USDA's decision to ramp down oversight of the genetically modified seed industry, another federal agency has been quietly asking hard questions about the business...
View ArticleMonsanto's "Superweeds" Gallop Through Midwest
Back in the mid-'90s, Monsanto rolled out seeds genetically engineered to withstand its Roundup herbicide. To ensure huge growth potential, the company shrewdly chose the most widely planted, highly...
View Article3 Ways Scientific American Got the Organic Ag Story Wrong
Over on the Scientific American blog, Christie Wilcox set out to expose the "myths" of organic farming. Frankly, the piece was so poorly reasoned that I read it with a yawn. But people take Scientific...
View ArticleSyngenta Makes a Killing on Pesticides While Feds Snooze
The pesticide atrazine is vile stuff. A "potent endocrine disruptor,"it causes a range of reproductive problems at extremely low doses; and it commonly leaches out of farm fields and into people's...
View ArticleYour Chicken Nuggets Are Killing Your Crab Cakes
Every year in the Chesapeake Bay, an algae bloom spreads out, sucking oxygen out of the water and destroying fish habitat. This year's "dead zone" stretches from Baltimore Harbor to south of the...
View ArticleWhat the USDA Doesn't Want You to Know About Antibiotics and Factory Farms
Here (PDF) is a document the USDA doesn't want you to see. It's what the agency calls a "technical review"—nothing more than a USDA-contracted researcher's simple, blunt summary of recent academic...
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