"TODOS SANTOS, Mexico -- Clamshell containers on supermarket shelves in the United States may depict verdant fields, tangles of vines and ruby red tomatoes. But at this time of year, the tomatoes, peppers and basil certified as organic by the Agriculture Department often hail from the Mexican desert, and are nurtured with intensive irrigation. "

"One of the nation's most widely planted crops -- genetically engineered corn that makes its own insecticide -- may be losing its effectiveness because a major pest appears to be developing resistance more quickly than scientists expected."

"Big Corn and Big Sugar are locked in a legal and public relations fight in the US over a plan to change the name of a corn-based sweetener that has gotten a bad name."

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture released a document yesterday that got no attention on the nightly news, or almost anywhere, really. Its title, I'm sure you'll agree, is a snooze: National Nutrient Management Standard. Yet this document represents the agency's best attempt to solve one of the country's -- and the world's -- really huge environmental problems: The nitrogen and phosphorus that pollute waterways."

"Honeywell and fertilizer maker J.R. Simplot have agreed to build the first commercial facility for Sulf-N 26, a granular fertilizer that is comparable to ammonium nitrate but would be ineffective as a bomb material. Ammonium nitrate combined with fuel oil was used in the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995."

A new study showing that traces of arsenic can be absorbed by humans from rice raises questions about whether the exposure presents a risk -- and, if so, how to minimize it.

"Department of Agriculture researchers are working with rare plant pathogens that have the power to wipe out food crops that feed billions of people, or if harnessed and applied precisely, could control noxious weeds that have infested millions of acres of land."

"A host of data – from sediment cores to ongoing drought in East Africa to computer models – point to one conclusion: Our increasingly hotter, drier planet is going to be a tough place to farm."

Douglas Fischer reports for The Daily Climate December 5, 2011.
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SEE ALSO:

"Three-Quarters of Climate Change Is Man-Made" (Nature News)
[26]

"Grain prices are tempting farmers to plow up protected land, even as conservation subsidies shrink."

"The weather may not always have been kind to cocoa farmers in West Africa, but until recently it was at least broadly predictable."