The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a bid by biotech giant Bayer to end thousands of lawsuits alleging its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, likely costing the company billions of dollars in settlements.
Read moreHow can we heal our relationship with food in the age of artificial food? In response to the crises in our food system we are witnessing the rise of technological solutions that aim to replace animal products and other food staples with lab-grown alternatives.
Read moreScientists have been raising growing concerns for decades over the use of toxic “forever chemicals,” so called because their strong molecular bonds can take hundreds of years to completely break down in the environment. Widely used in consumer products such as cookware and clothing, these substances are turning up everywhere from drinking water to our bloodstream. And now researchers are warning of yet another—and so far underrecognized—source of these troubling toxins: common pesticides.
Read moreThe U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a bid from Bayer-owned Monsanto that aimed to challenge thousands of lawsuits claiming its weedkiller Roundup causes cancer – a potentially costly ruling. The high court did not explain its decision, which left intact a $25 million ruling in favor of a California man who alleged he developed cancer after using the chemical for years.
Read moreWASHINGTON, June 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Bayer AG's (BAYGn.DE) bid to dismiss legal claims by customers who contend its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer as the German company seeks to avoid potentially billions of dollars in damages.
Read moreLast October, Mexico took a strong stand for biodiversity and sent a stinging rebuke to the multi-billion-dollar biotechnology/pesticide industry. The country’s Supreme Court unanimously denied four appeals that biotech companies had filed against a 2013 judicial decision that prohibited them from planting genetically engineered corn in the country. The ruling means no GMO corn will be planted in Mexico.
Read moreIn a move that the Syngenta boss says is “in no way linked to Syngenta’s business objectives,” CEO Erik Fyrwald recently called for an abandonment of organic farming to focus on increased yields to avert rising global food insecurity. The solution, in his view, is for rich countries to improve yields to better feed the world.
“The indirect consequence is that people are starving in Africa because we are eating more and more organic products,” Fyrwald said.
Kilian Baumann, a Bernese organic farmer and president of the Swiss Small Farmers’ Association, said Fyrwald’s thinking is “grotesque”—motivated by “fighting for sales” as farmers use fewer pesticides.
Read moreHoping to fend off concerns about eating ‘gene-edited’ food, the British government claims the process it plans to legalise is different to GM — or genetic modification. With supporters claiming it will be good for planet, people, and pockets, Westminster insists “editing” genes is safe and, unlike GM, won’t share genetic material across species.
Read moreA conference on GMO Regulation for genomic techniques: Environmental and consumer protection aspects was hosted by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection, in Brussels on 13 June. Speakers addressed the European Commission's proposal to weaken the regulations around certain types of new GMOs.
Read moreIn a historic victory for farmworkers and the environment on Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sided with Center for Food Safety (CFS) and its represented farmworker and conservation clients by overturning the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision that the toxic pesticide glyphosate is safe for humans and imperiled wildlife.
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