Agriculture

UPDATE: As of Dec. 1, NPR reports funding for USDA's Beltsville, Md., research center has been resored. No link available. 

"Industry groups and scientists have urged the Trump administration to reconsider its plan to close a renowned Agriculture Department center in Maryland and disperse its work around the country."

"The World Health Organization’s cancer research agency has classified atrazine – the second most widely used herbicide in the United States – as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” adding to growing concerns about toxic exposures in the nation’s farm belt."

"In western Chad, villagers are desperately trying to hold back the sand as the climate crisis wreaks havoc on one of the hottest countries in the world"

"As worry mounts about health risks from exposure to ‘forever chemicals,’ Virginia communities push for testing and limits for biosolids"

"Southwestern states are bracing for many of their streams to lose federal safeguards under the EPA’s proposal to lift Clean Water Act protections for many wetlands and waterways across the US. New Mexico, Arizona, California, and other arid states face the brunt of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal because it explicitly excludes streams that only run when it rains—one of the most common kinds of waterways in the desert Southwest."

"A Washington resident who was the first human case of bird flu in the U.S. since February died on Friday, state health officials said. The person was an older adult with underlying conditions and had been hospitalized since early November with a strain that was previously reported in animals but never before in humans."

"The Trump pick to lead the land management agency has ties to anti-government extremists"

"New data is adding to regulatory concerns about potential human health risks from the weed killer paraquat, leading the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to seek more information from manufacturers of the pesticide."

"More than 300 lobbyists for food and farming organisations have participated at this year’s United Nations climate talks, known as COP30, taking place in the Brazilian Amazon, where agribusiness is the leading cause of deforestation, a new investigation has found."

"State officials are failing to protect the health and safety of thousands of young field laborers, an investigation has found."