Agriculture

Phosphorus is essential for current methods of agricultural production -- but limited world supplies may require profound changes in farming.

"The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday sought to calm a furor over its apparent proposal to reduce ethanol use in gasoline next year, saying that no final decisions had been made about the contentious mandate."

"The Food and Drug Administration has been forced to suspend all routine food safety inspections for the duration of the government shutdown, FDA spokesman Steven Immergut confirmed to The Huffington Post on Friday afternoon. Until funding is restored, the FDA will be inspecting only those facilities that it has cause to believe 'present an immediate threat to public health.'"

"South of Florida's Lake Okeechobee, hundreds of thousands of acres of sugar cane thrive in the heart of one of the world's largest wetlands. The Everglades stretches from the tip of the peninsula to central Florida, north of Lake Okeechobee."

"The Department of Agriculture will not close the California chicken-processing plants linked to a nationwide outbreak of antibiotic-resistant salmonella, officials said."

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave a California poultry producer until Thursday to correct problems that led to a salmonella outbreak in 18 states, or be forced to shut down three processing plants."

"Washington state is the next battleground in an ongoing effort by food activists to get products containing genetically engineered ingredients labeled. California voters rejected a similar initiative 53% to 47% in a bruising and expensive election in 2012."

"Until recently, if you wanted to find out the rules for raising goats in Hollywood, bees in Bel Air or squash in a community garden in South Central Los Angeles, it would have been pretty tough — like standing in various lines at the DMV."

"Consumer safety advocates are sounding the alarm now that fewer government officials are at work to inspect food in light of the shutdown. But in reality, the government wasn’t doing much of that in the first place."

"When it comes to zeroing in on nectar-rich flowers, worker honeybees rely heavily on their expert sense of smell. But new research suggests pollution from diesel exhaust may fool the honeybee's 'nose,' making their search for staple flowers all the more difficult."