Agriculture

"The recurring climate phenomenon is expected to peak later this year, but it is already causing dry spells and crop failures on three continents."

"The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is making it harder for manufacturers to deem their own chemical ingredients as safe."

"Disturbing news about our water resources is now constant and unrelenting. In just the past few weeks, media have reported that Puerto Rico is suffering a deep water crisis as severe drought has cut water supplies to thousands. The Rhine and Po rivers in Europe are at record low levels. The seven states sharing the Colorado River in the US are fighting over unprecedented shortages, while its major reservoirs have shrunk to their lowest levels since they were built."

"In Nebraska, Blackshirt Feeders LP is building the country’s largest feedlot for 200,000 beef cattle on a square-mile slab of concrete."

"Republicans on Thursday voted down a proposed amendment to the Farm Bill that would have  protected consumer rights to sue pesticide manufacturers over alleged harm after the US Supreme Court recently narrowed those rights."

"About 50 million people are likely to be pushed into acute hunger before the end of next year by the rapidly developing El Niño weather system, according to forecasting. This is in addition to the hundreds of millions of people already facing dangerous levels of hunger, owing to years of drought in parts of Africa and pressure on food prices from the war in Iran."

"The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has backed off its re-assessment of cancer-causing nitrates despite decades of research suggesting the contaminant is more harmful than previously thought and that nitrate pollution is at crisis levels in US drinking water."

"Police from five Amazon countries have arrested hundreds of people and seized timber, minerals and thousands of livestock in one of the largest coordinated crackdowns on environmental crime ever carried out in the world’s largest rainforest."

"High levels of microplastics and other plastic contamination have been discovered in a waterway close to a major recycling hub in Turkey supplied with plastic waste by British companies."

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expanding the largest known cyclosporiasis outbreak to 15 states, adding six states where illnesses have been traced to shredded iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico, according to three individuals familiar with the investigation."