"In the first test of a landmark environmental law, Minnesota has compensated two beekeepers whose hives were severely damaged last spring by toxic dust that drifted off the fields of a neighbor planting corn."
"From the air, the Midwest looks like a patchwork of cropland and pastures. But before the land was turned over to plows and center pivots, most of it was a sea of grass."
"Biologists in the United States and Europe are developing a revolutionary genetic technique that promises to provide an unprecedented degree of control over insect-borne diseases and crop pests."
"In Ecuador’s Amazon region, above the banks of the swirling Aguarico River, Luis Chamba grows cacao - the basis of chocolate and cocoa butter - on his family’s tiny finca."
"SAN MATEO ALMOMOLOA, Mexico -- After a staggering decline over the past two decades, the population of the iconic monarch butterfly is expected to recover following coordinated efforts across North American governments, Mexico's environment minister said on Thursday."
Melting glaciers in Glacier National Park are endangering stoneflies which are dependent on cold water. In the coming year, federal biologists will decide whether such insects deserve endangered species status.
"Herbicides and insecticides are key tools in managing invasive species — but managers are working to find more environmentally friendly substitutes".
"In the last few years, doctors in the southern U.S. have seen some strange diseases: Chagas disease, parasitic infections of the brain known as neurocysticercosis, dengue, the virus chikungunya and more."
EPA is trying to phase out the soil fumigant methyl bromide, on which the commercial strawberry crop has been dependent. Methyl bromide damages the ozone layer of the atmosphere. But the effort to find an adequate substitute has scientists scrambling.
"The Ontario government has unveiled North America’s first agricultural restrictions on a widely used class of pesticides blamed for the decline in bees and other pollinators."
