Agriculture

"After years of taking farmers to court to assert their patent rights, agri-giant Monsanto Co.is being sued by farmers. Lots of farmers."

"The U.S. health regulator on Thursday declined a request by orange juice producers to allow a higher tolerance of a banned fungicide in juice imports, a decision that will force Brazil to stop exporting concentrated orange juice to the United States."

"With dozens of area farm workers looking on -- many wearing headphones to hear a Spanish translation of the proceedings -- the Monterey County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday urged Gov. Jerry Brown to take another look at a controversial, highly toxic agricultural fumigant."

"One young child in four around the world is too malnourished to grow properly, a major new investigation reveals."

Residents of Oregon's Triangle Lake area complain that aerial spraying of herbicides, which drift onto adjacent properties, is causing harm to their health and plants. The herbicides involved are atrazine and 2,4-D. For years, state regulators dismissed the complaints, but now neighbors have banded together and hired labs to do their own testing.

"A U.S. government report on Monday showed farmers in the United States will plant the largest area with corn this spring since World War Two, which could double the razor-thin stocks of this year and help defray costs to consumers and food companies."

"Chicken farmers nationwide have stopped feeding their flocks a drug containing arsenic since a 2011 government study suggested the cancer-causing metal may be tainting poultry, but Maryland lawmakers are still struggling with whether to ban the once-widespread practice."

"Silent in flannel shirts and ponytails, farmers from Saskatchewan and South Dakota, Mississippi and Massachusetts lined the walls of a packed federal courtroom in Manhattan last week, as their lawyers told a judge that they were no longer able to keep genetically modified crops from their fields."