Big Ag companies under investigation (Wall Street Journal): The Canadian Competition Bureau is investigating Bayer, Corteva, BASF, and other agrochemical companies for allegedly blocking sales to an Amazon-like startup that would sell farm inputs.
Dicamba complaints mount (NPR): Pesticide investigators across several states have been overwhelmed with complaints about dicamba damage to farms, orchards, vineyards, and home gardens.
Warning for Democrats (Mother Jones): If they don’t pay more attention to rural voters this election year, experts say, Democrats will repeat the disastrous results of 2016, when Hillary Clinton won just 34 percent of the rural vote.
China will cut tariffs on soy, other goods (New York Times): The Ministry of Finance said China would essentially halve its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans, cars, crude oil, and other goods, effective Feb. 14, a step toward carrying out the “phase one” trade agreement that calls for China to expand its purchases of U.S. products.
Corteva to stop making chlorpyrifos (Washington Post): In a victory for environmental and public health groups on the same day that California cut off sales of chlorpyrifos, Corteva said it would discontinue production of the insecticide by the end of this year.
Workers move from wine to weed (Foothills Sun Gazette): Cannabis growers are attracting workers with higher pay and shorter hours than vineyards offer in California’s wine country, “increasing tensions between these relative newcomers and the state’s long-established wine producers.”