Search results

"After decades of pressure from farmworkers and their allies, California launched a statewide system to warn communities before they’re exposed to toxic pesticides. But health concerns remain."

"The number of butterflies in the contiguous United States declined by 22 percent this century, a collapse with potentially dire implications."

"Butterflies are rapidly fluttering out of existence from coast to coast, according to a new assessment published Thursday, at a rate that scientists worry could upend ecosystems and undercut pollination that sustains America’s crops.

"Pesticide company efforts to push through laws that could block litigation against them is igniting battles in several US farm states and pitting some farm groups against each other. Laws have been introduced in at least 8 states so far and drafts are circulating in more than 20 states, backed by a deluge of advertising supporting the measures."

"Farmer Rafik Danwade had been pumping more pesticides on his acre-long field in Jambhali village in India’s Maharashtra state, but the chemicals were getting less effective at protecting his 3,200 chili plants from nematodes and other bugs. So Danwade, 56, turned to a practice his grandfather taught him in the 1970s: He planted 1,000 marigolds on the border and alternating rows of the field."