Center for Food Safety

The Agriculture Department shirked its duties in a 2020 rule that exempted genetically engineered plants from pre-market review if they were unlikely to pose an environmental risk, ruled U.S. district judge James Donato on Tuesday. Donato overturned the rule, issued during the first Trump administration, and told USDA to reconsider it.

Comparing the herbicide trifludimoxazin to dicamba, two environmental groups asked the U.S. appeals court in San Francisco to set aside the EPA’s unconditional approval in May of the new weedkiller. Trifludimoxazin is sold by BASF under the brand name Tirexor and is the first new “mode of …

The anti-GMO group Center for Food Safety filed suit against the USDA to force release of a study on the impact of using digital disclosures such as QR codes to identify foods made with GMO ingredients. "In the United States, there has never been a food labeling requirement met by QR codes," says the center, which prefers a written label on food packages.

New York "is one step closer to becoming the first state to have genetically modified, non-sterile insects released" for an open-air trial against the crop-damaging diamondback month, says news site EcoWatch. The public comment period has closed on USDA's environmental assessment, which says the proposed field trial is unlikely to cause adverse effects on plants, soil, water and people.

A U.S. district judge in California ruled that the EPA violated the Endangered Species Act when it issued 59 registrations from 2007-12 that allow use of neonicotinoid insecticides in agricultural, landscaping and ornamental uses. District Judge Maxine Chesney issued a mixed verdict that upheld some the issues raised by beekeepers and environmental groups but denied others.

In a victory for Monsanto, Syngenta and other seed companies farming in Hawaii, a federal appeals court ruled that counties can’t regulate pesticide use or GMO crops, says Civil Beat. “The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded Friday that Hawaii state pesticide law is comprehensive, and that the Legislature intended it to be 'uniform and exclusive of additional, local rules.'”

A longtime advocate for, and researcher of, organic agriculture, Rodale Institute is launching the Organic Farmers Association, which it says will be the first U.S. group speaking solely for organic farmers. The USDA reported last week that there are 12,818 certified organic farms covering 4.36 million acres, a small share of the 2.07 million farms and 912 million acres of farmland in the country.

Under terms of a settlement, the Interior Department will rule by June 30, 2019, whether the monarch butterfly, which has suffered a huge drop in population, deserves protection under the Endangered Species Act, said two environmental groups. The groups say without help, the well-known orange-and-black insect is at risk of extinction.

Hawaii’s legislature should “undertake a major update of [state] pesticide laws and regulation,” says a draft report commissioned by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture, and by Kauai county.

Two environmental groups sued the Interior Department to force a decision on listing the monarch butterfly as an endangered species.

Two environmental groups said they plan to sue the Interior Department to force a decision on whether to protect the monarch butterfly as a "threatened" animal under the Endangered Species Act.

After a decade of development, Monsanto anticipates its genetically engineered Xtend soybean and cotton varieties will be its "largest biotech trait launch...with six times the number of varieties" that it offered in a previous set of GE strains.

Cotton and soybean varieties genetically engineered by Monsanto to tolerate the herbicide dicamba should be approved for use by farmers, said USDA in issuing its final environmental impact statement (EIS) on the strains.

Second-term Sen Jeff Merkley of Oregon is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture and FDA for the 114th Congress, said Sen Barbara Mikulski, the Democratic leader on the committee, in a statement.

The Agriculture Department approved cultivation of the Innate potato developed by JR Simplot Co. and genetically engineered to produce smaller amounts of acrylamides when it is fried.

Food and environmental groups are renewing calls for the Agriculture Department "to adopt a slower, more stringent approval process" for genetically engineered crops, says USA Today.