"Organic growers and food safety advocates on Tuesday condemned an advisory report to the Agriculture Department claiming its recommendations would be costly for farmers who want to protect their conventional crops from being contaminated by genetically modified (GMO), also known as genetically engineered (GE), varieties."

"The Environmental Protection Agency declined on Friday to relax its requirement on the use of corn ethanol in gasoline, rejecting a request from several states related to a steep decline in the nation’s corn production."

"After months of uncertainty over the future of the program, the Agricultural Marketing Service's Microbiological Data Program, which tests produce for disease-causing pathogens like E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and Listeria, has officially gone into shutdown mode, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official confirmed Tuesday."

"Seville, with a population of about 300, is one of dozens of predominantly Latino unincorporated communities in the Central Valley plagued for decades by contaminated drinking water."

"An election that saw great strides for women, gay men and lesbians and even pot smokers left the nascent food movement scratching its collective head. We’re going to see marijuana legalized before we see a simple change in food labeling that’s favored by more than 90 percent of Americans? Or a tax on soda, a likely contributor to the obesity problem?"

"Rising temperatures due to climate change could mean wild arabica coffee is extinct in 70 years, posing a risk to the genetic sustainability of one of the world's basic commodities, scientists said."

"Hot and dry conditions in parts of middle America deepened an ongoing drought in many states over the last week, according to a climatology report issued Thursday."

"A measure that would require most foods made with genetically engineered ingredients to be labeled in California was significantly behind early Wednesday."

"The devastating U.S. drought and ensuing crop disease are upending traditional grain movement patterns, with dozens of trains and barges shipping North Dakota or Mississippi corn into the Corn Belt rather than out to the coasts."

"CHAUVIN, La. -- Generations of shrimpers, crabbers and oystermen have set out from this bayou village to net their catch. They share an emotional bond with Iowa's farmers: Both harvest nature's bounty to earn a livelihood. These fishermen depend on the sea, just as the nation's top corn growers rely on the rich Midwest soil."

"Growers are reluctantly trying to irrigate less to preserve their threatened underground aquifer."

"Genetic engineering of crops is essentially the same as centuries-old, conventional plant breeding, except more precise, scientists say." As voting time nears on California's Proposition 37, arguments about science, safety, and the public's right to know intensify.

"The hillside vineyards of New York's Finger Lakes region make money producing fine Rieslings and inviting tourists to sip white wine by the water's edge. Now winery owners are worried about the prospect of a grittier kind of economic development: gas drilling."

"Pesticides used in farming are also killing worker bumblebees and damaging their ability to gather food, meaning colonies that are vital for plant pollination are more likely to fail when they are used, a study showed on Sunday."

"After a hot spring and a scorching summer, this winter is likely to continue a U.S. warming trend that could make 2012 the hottest year since modern record-keeping began, U.S. weather experts said Thursday."