Agriculture

"The U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigated only one out of 27 fatal accidents in the last fiscal year, part of a five-year slide that saw the agency fail to probe more than 90 percent of workplace fatalities, U.S. EPA's inspector general said in a report released yesterday."

"More than 100 Nobel laureates have signed a letter urging Greenpeace to end its opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs)."

"The European Commission is extending by 18 months its approval for weed-killer glyphosate, used in Monsanto's Roundup, Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis said on Tuesday."

"The overlap of oil and gas development and water sources underscores the vulnerability of California's groundwater, and the need for monitoring, the authors said."

"In California's farming heartland, as many as one of every five oil and gas projects occurs in underground sources of fresh water, according to a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Just a week before a Vermont law kicks in requiring labels on food containing genetically modified ingredients, U.S. Senate agriculture leaders announced a deal Thursday that takes the power out of states' hands — and sets a mandatory national system for GM disclosures on food products."

"STUTSMAN COUNTY, N.D. — Over the past few years, Neil Shook has watched his world burn acre by acre. 'I could tell something was happening,' Shook recalled, when he first noticed the plumes of smoke in 2011. By 2013, fires were raging every day, sending smoke billowing into the air — imagery that reminded Shook of Kuwait’s burning oil wells during the Persian Gulf War."

"The fight over regulating genetically engineered crops in three Hawaii counties was back in a federal courtroom as some agricultural giants look to protect their farms from bans against modified food."

A proposed 42-inch natural gas pipeline through rural Virginia has torn Nelson County apart. A story of energy policy is told from the viewpoint of one woman whose beloved farmland is threatened by eminent domain.

"It’s no fairy tale — factory farms and air travel form a viral expressway to pandemics."