"THERMAL – At one end of Avenue 54, a road slicing through some of the most fertile land in the United States, resides the California of the popular imagination: a place of Bermuda shorts, putting greens and picture-window champagne dinners overlooking the infinity pool.
"Genetic engineering has failed to increase the yield of any food crop but has vastly increased the use of chemicals and the growth of "superweeds", according to a report by 20 Indian, south-east Asian, African and Latin American food and conservation groups representing millions of people.
Don't feel too sorry for the farmers losing one federal subsidy -- they may simply be gaining another.
"America must stop promoting the production of biofuels if there is to be any real progress in addressing spiking global food prices and famine, such as seen in the Horn of Africa, an authoritative thinktank has warned."
As the federal budget battle continues, President Obama outlined on Sept. 19, 2011, a package of ideas designed to cut costs and increase income over the next decade. One element of the $3 trillion package is an $8.5 billion reduction in costs for crop insurance.
"Farmer Brian Schaumburg has planted corn for five straight years in some of the thousands of acres he tends in central Illinois."
"Monsanto Co., the world's largest seed company, has prevailed in another lawsuit against a U.S. farmer, earning a ruling from a federal appeals court that protects Monsanto's interests even when its patented seeds are sold in a mix of undifferentiated "commodity" seeds."
