Anti-GMO activists addressed the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Honolulu this week, in an effort to regulate GMO crops in three counties, reports The Seattle Times. The activists from Maui, Hawaii and Kauai, say they fear the pesticide use that comes with GMO production. All three counties have passed legislation limiting or outright banning GMOs. But after Monsanto and Dow Chemical sued in response, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren ruled in 2014 that state and federal laws supersede county legislation, making the anti-GMO laws null and void.

High sugar and trans-fats in Indian food are turning the world’s second most populous country diabetic, while child malnutrition in the region is slowly retreating, the 2016 Global Nutrition Report said. The study found that diabetes, a deficiency that inhibits the body to effectively use insulin, affects 9.5 percent of India’s population, putting it ahead of the U.K. and the U.S., and on par with China. Furthermore, 2 percent of deaths in all age groups in India are a result of diabetes, the WHO said.

Malawi is facing a food crisis as the southern Africa region wrestles with drought and high temperatures. Due to record high winter temperatures hitting southern Africa during planting season, Malawi’s corn production fell by 12 percent in April leaving the country short of 1 million tonnes of grain during its worst food crisis in a decade, The East African said.

The Environmental Protection Agency would have to review all chemicals before they hit the market, taking into account their environmental and health effects, under a long-sought revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act approved by the Senate last week.

The tiny Asian citrus psyllid, which spreads citrus greening disease, was identified for the first time in Monterey County, on California's central coast, says AgNet West. California is the second-largest citrus state in the country and agricultural officials hope to avoid damage to the state's groves.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to approve today legislation that would bar the EPA from implementing its Waters of the United States rule during the fiscal year that opens on Oct 1. Known as WOTUS, the rule defines the upstream reach of clean water laws and is under challenge in a federal appeals court.

Foodmakers pulled cookies, energy bars and pretzels from grocery shelves in a food recall prompted by the discovery of peanut residue in Grain Craft flour, the largest independent wheat miller in the U.S.

The Columbia River sockeye run is off to a record-setting start, says The Seattle Times, despite the fact that earlier in the season fishery managers forecasted a low salmon return due to high water temperatures. As of Monday, “June 13, a total of 33,496 sockeye [had] been counted at Bonneville Dam, the highest count through that date since at least 1938 — the previous record was 24,728 sockeye last year,” reports the Times.

Food-stamp recipients would buy more nutritious foods, notably vegetables, poultry and fish, if benefits were raised by $1 a day or 24 percent, says a study commissioned by the think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Higher-quality diets "may yield better long-term health outcomes," said the think tank.

Government scientists found the MCR-1 gene, which allows bacteria to overcome the last-resort antibiotics used against disease in humans, in a sample taken from a different pig than the first U.S. discovery, said a CDC official. The initial case, reported on the same day as discovery of a Pennsylvania woman with an infection that carried the MCR-1 gene, raised fears of "superbug" bacteria resistant to a broad array of antimicrobials.

California FreshWorks, a food-financing project, has given more than 800,000 Californians living in food deserts access to healthy produce, according to an independent study released today.

The Justice Department should conduct “a careful analysis” of whether the proposed Dow-DuPont merger will create an agro-chemical giant that unfairly dominates seed and pesticide sales, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a letter to antitrust regulators.

“All is not well in wine country,” writes Stett Holbrook in FERN’s latest story, “Of Water and Wine,” published in Bohemian. As multi-million-dollar vineyards and $1,000-a-night resorts rise Napa Valley, California, residents are trying to stop the powerful wine industry from destroying the watershed.

The Cape bee, a subspecies of honeybee from the southwestern tip of South Africa, sometimes breaks the rules of the bee world. "Female worker bees can escape their queen’s control, take over other colonies and reproduce asexually — with no need for males," reports the New York Times, a strategy that may assure survival in dire times but also reduces genetic vigor.

Some workers at U.S. packing plants pay a high price for their jobs, says Harvest Public Media in a three-part series that starts today with new installments through Thursday. "Employees aren't cattle going through the chutes," the widow of one worker tells HPM. "They're people with families."