Just Label It News Roundup 4-20

EWG recently launched its Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce. Use the Clean Fifteen and Dirty Dozen lists to make smarter choices at the grocery store. Modern farmers Helena and Matthew Sylvester have created a sustainable organic farm in a metropolitan area with a focus on making fresh food available to locals. In a two-part series, Gary Hirshberg reflects on GMO labeling, political activism and why he’s so involved in organic food production. Demand for organic, certified or non-GM soybeans is expected to rise as consumers want to verify sustainability and traceability. A new study has found that organic farming is much more efficient at recycling nitrogen than conventional farming, helping reduce global nitrogen pollution.

EWG’s 2018 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce.

Meet the Modern Farmers: Helena and Matthew Sylvester

Helena and Matthew Sylvester’s organic produce outfit sits within the Sunol AgPark, created by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission 12 years ago to provide sustainable growers in the metropolitan area with affordable acreage. The end goal: keeping food local, despite the region’s continuously skyrocketing real estate prices. (Palo Alto and the Googleplex lie some 30 miles west.) The Sylvesters have certainly delivered, wresting an astonishing 80 different vegetable varieties from a single acre during their first year, 2014.

Gary Hirshberg reflects on GMO Labeling, Political Activism and Why He’s So Involved

From building a business with seven cows, his heart has driven his mission. Tirelessly defending people from toxic chemicals, protecting the environment all the while selling some darn good yogurt, propels him still tirelessly to this day.

Two pests targeted by GM Bt toxins hybridise to form global mega-pest

The cotton bollworm and corn earworm are two pests targeted by the Bt toxins engineered into GM Bt insecticidal crops. Both pests have in past years become resistant to these GM Bt toxins. Now a new study has found that the two pests have hybridised, meaning that attempts to kill them with GM or chemical toxins are increasingly likely to fail.

Study: Organic farming reduces nitrogen pollution

A new study has found that organic farming is much more efficient at recycling nitrogen than conventional farming, helping reduce global nitrogen pollution.

To Transform the ‘Hood for Good’ Urban Farmer Chanowk Yisrael Plants Seeds not only in the Ground, but in Minds

A common perception of farming encompasses the process of growing food and selling it to the masses. For many American farmers, this process represents their entire enterprise. Yet, for Chanowk Yisrael, being a farmer has greater significance for his family and community. With his wife and nine children, Yisrael operates the Yisrael Family Urban Farm on a half-acre plot in his backyard in South Oak Park, a historically working-class neighborhood in Sacramento, California.

Young Hive-Bound Bees Befuddled by Common Chemicals

Hive-bound young honey bees (Apis mellifera) are being poisoned by insecticide and weed killer gathered by their foraging hive mates, according to new research published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. The chemicals cause brain damage in young worker bees, affecting both their ability to taste and to learn, placing the future of the colony at risk.

Global non-GM soybean demand to rise, driven by EU

Demand for organic, certified or non-GM soybeans is expected to rise as consumers want to verify sustainability and traceability.