Climate Food and Agriculture
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Top USDA bee researcher also found Bayer pesticide harmful to honeybees
Remember the case of the leaked document showing that the EPA's own scientists are concerned about a pesticide it approved that might harm fragile honeybee populations? Well, it turns out that USDA researchers also have good evidence that these nicotine-derived chemicals could be playing a part in Colony Collapse Disorder. So why on earth are they still in use on millions of acres of American farmland?
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The beekeeper who kicked the EPA's nest speaks [VIDEO]
We have Tom Theobald to thank for the leaked EPA documents revealing the bee-killing potential of clothianidin, a widely used pesticide. He tells his story in a new video.
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Beware the water cowboys
The water wars are usually about supply and demand. But across the country, financially challenged communities are being aggressively courted -- including by Goldman Sachs! -- to sell or lease their drinking water and wastewater utilities to private companies.
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Reflections on community gardens and the legacy of MLK
We don't do King's memory justice unless we acknowledge that his work was profoundly unfinished. The class divide he feared has persisted and, in fact, grown more powerful. Perhaps most insidiously, that divide has entrenched itself in our food system.
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USDA releases new nutritional guidelines for school meals
The fight over the federal school lunch program is really a question of social justice for our times. Do the disadvantaged children for whom the program was designed deserve the chance to eat the same quality food as children from families who can afford to shop at a farmers market?
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Why the banana crisis doesn't make me stop worrying and love GMOs
The banana export market is dominated by a single variety that's being stalked by a ruinous blight, as a recent New Yorker article chronicles -- and even some sustainable-food folks think maybe a little genetic engineering is OK in this case. I take a look.
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Worldwatch report highlights how lopsided discussion is about Africa, food, and biotechnology
How come we hardly see op-eds on what paved roads, improved sanitation, more efficient distribution networks, soil conservation and a reduction in food waste might do for world hunger?
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Getting sugar out of schools means getting it out of milk too, says head of Harvard nutrition
Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, weighs in on the dairy industry's campaign to keep offering kids chocolate milk, despite the array of sugar-related health problems America is facing.
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Learn how truly wild rice is harvested [VIDEO]
Most wild rice that you see at the store is not, in fact, wild. Truly wild rice is superior in flavor, but few have the patience for this kind of painstaking hand-harvesting anymore except Native Americans.
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The ‘food bubble’ is bursting, says Lester Brown, and biotech won’t save us
As food prices spike anew, the pioneering environmentalist has a chilling report about the global "food bubble." I asked him whether policymakers and biotech execs are right that genetically modified seeds are the answer to "feeding the world." His answer? No.
