"The cloud of insecticide that drifted from a neighbour's corn field onto the asparagus on Andrew and Melissa Dunham's central Iowa farm cast a shadow over their organic vegetable business."

"Perdue Farms says it has ditched the common practice of injecting antibiotics into eggs that are just about to hatch. And public health advocates are cheering. They've been campaigning against the widespread use of antibiotics in agriculture, arguing that it's adding to the plague of antibiotic-resistant bacteria."

"Wednesday is biofuel's big moment: The first of three commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants comes online in Iowa. It took years of tricky engineering to get to this point. But that may prove the easy part, for the fuel's promise as a climate solution hinges heavily on federal policy."

"A coalition of environmental and food-safety groups is asking the Fish and Wildlife Service to grant endangered species protection to the monarch butterfly, whose U.S. population, the groups say, last year fell to 90 percent below its 20-year average."

"The corn rows are high and tassled, pumpkins are gaining girth and, amid these signs the fall harvest is near, evidence is growing that farmers and others who live or work around pesticides are at greater risk for neurogenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease."

"In a sharp rebuke of state plans for a massive water tunnel system in Northern California, federal environmental officials say that the project would violate pollution standards and could worsen conditions for imperiled fish species."

"FARGO, N.D. — The furious pace of energy exploration in North Dakota is creating a crisis for farmers whose grain shipments have been held up by a vast new movement of oil by rail, leading to millions of dollars in agricultural losses and slower production for breakfast cereal giants like General Mills."

"The law, Ordinance 960, which was enacted last year, bitterly divided the normally idyllic island and also captured global attention. Hawaii’s year-round growing season had made the state a hub for the development of genetically engineered corn seeds that are then planted throughout the United States and in other countries. Corn stalks now sprout where pineapples and sugar cane once grew."

"An activist’s controversial crusade against genetically modified crops."

"More than 1 million gallons of manure flowed from a small farm for months, say Marathon County officials, quickly filling a storage tank the size of a small basement, then trickling into a wetland and eventually entering the Little Eau Pleine River on the far western edge of the county."