Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Brazil has long had agribusiness-friendly policies, thanks in part to its powerful congressional farming lobby, known as the Bancada Ruralista, and in part to a decades-long push to leverage its vast natural resources into global influence.
Right now, farming with toxic pesticides is the norm. But, for the health of all people from farm to table, we need to create a food system where organic is for all. The solution is here—we just have to grow it.
Donning a blue and white Hawaiian shirt, Governor David Ige signed Senate Bill SB3095 and made the use of chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxic pesticide, illegal in the state of Hawaii.
Dramatic declines in bird populations suggest that we are much further along in the so-called Sixth Great Extinction than we imagined. What does it mean for the human future?
As Günther and his cows wove their way through Laatsch, a beeping horn stopped him. He turned around, spreading his arms to slow the bovine promenade behind him, and let the car slip by before he and his cows stepped back into the main thoroughfare for their jaunt from the barn to pasture. The driver had Swiss plates and a business suit. Someone in a rush to make money, he surmised, while he headed out to his fields to seal his own financial fate in several plastic bags.
The role of insect ecology is to try to understand the regulating mechanisms between plants and insects.
By banning pesticides in a referendum, the community of Mals in Southern Tyrol is set to garner worldwide attention. That does not mean that the conflict is settled.
Any time a writer mentions Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring or the subsequent U.S. ban on DDT, the loonies come out of the woodwork.
Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962, but I suspect for most people reading it today the information would be fresh, enlightening, and alarming.
Earthworms that make their home in contaminated soil do so at a significant cost, according to French and Danish researchers.
Citrus growers in California are now turning to a natural solution after pesticides have been shown to be ineffective.
"The only good aphid is a dead aphid" used to be my mantra. I would walk up and down rows of plotted trees, spraying the plants with Metasystox, oblivious to the risks to my own health. I didn’t bother with rubber gloves, a mask, or even rubber boots, leaving my skin exposed to this toxic pesticide. With the lid to the pesticide sprayer not properly sealed, Metasystox leaked down my back. Dizzy with nausea, I passed out. This was my harsh introduction to pesticides. It was also the last time I ever used anything toxic on my crops.
