Monsanto

Monsanto told California regulators that they should withdraw their proposal to add the weedkiller glyphosate to a state list of chemicals known to cause cancer, said Reuters. The state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment unveiled the plan in September and said it was required following an assessment by a World Health Organization agency that the chemical is a probable carcinogen in humans.

The Hawaii state Department of Agriculture plans to expand statewide a voluntary program in which major agricultural companies such as Dow, Pioneer, Sygenta and BASF report the types and amounts of restricted-use pesticides that they use each month on Kauai, says Honolulu Civil Beat. Under the "Good Neighbor Program," the companies put a 100-foot buffer zone around pesticide applications and, if requested, notify neighbors before spraying. State agriculture director Scott Enright "said he expects the program to be implemented statewide by the end of the year."

Rebuffed in an attempt to buy rival Syngenta, Monsanto executives "are seeking to re-position the company as a business built on data science and services, as well as its traditional chemicals, seeds and genetic traits operations," says Reuters after interviewing chief technology officer Robert Fraley.

Kansas, often the No. 1 wheat state, is the latest hot spot for emergence of herbicide-resistant weeds.

A state environmental agency in California says it intends to list glyphosate, the most widely used weedkiller in the world, "as known to the state to cause cancer" under the so-called Proposition 65 law.

Both Monsanto, the giant seed company, or Stonyfield Farm, the organic yogurt company, "have aggressively recruited academic researchers" to carry their banner in the tussle over labeling foods made with genetically modified organisms, says the New York Times.

In what amounts to a revolt against the data-gathering initiatives of companies like Monsanto and Dupont, farmers are increasingly using sensors and other technology to gather their own data from their fields--and either crunching it themselves, selling it to aggregators and other ag-industry players, or both.

In a column in the New England Journal of Medicine, two scientists called for a new U.S. safety assessment of glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the world, said Reuters.

The seed and pesticide giant Monsanto Co. has ended its attempt to buy Syngenta, its Swiss rival, says Deutsche Welle.

Monsanto and competitors such as Bayer and Syngenta are investigating genetic sprays that can temporarily turn off the activity of any gene through a technology called RNA interference, says MIT Technology Review.

U.S. Judge Stephanie Rose dismissed charges against a Chinese woman, Mo Yun, accused of conspiring to steal trade secrets from U.S. seed companies, said the Associated Press.

If Monsanto pulls off a merger with Syngenta, a leader in one of the remaining major agrochemical companies expects an industry-wide overhaul of strategy, said Bloomberg.

The Just Label It campaign for mandatory labeling of food made with genetically modified organisms "rolled out a trio of academics on Wednesday in a bid to raise public awareness of the public health and environmental costs of herbicides used in the production of genetically engineered crops," said Agri-Pulse.

The EPA should conduct "an urgent re-evaluation" of glyphosate, one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, in response to a determination by a World Health Organization agency that the weedkiller is probably carcinogenic for humans, said eight environmental groups.

Monsanto, the giant seed company, settled lawsuits field by wheat growers in seven states over the 2013 discovery of a GMO variety growing in the wild in eastern Oregon.

Seed company Monsanto says it has competed a field trial of genetically engineered corn in India, and aims to submit data within a year to the government for use in deciding whether to approve the strain, according to Reuters.

As it promised last month, Bayer, the world's largest seed and agricultural chemicals company, asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to overturn the $25-million award to Edwin Hardeman, a California man who blamed Roundup herbicide for giving him cancer. The appeal is a key element in Bayer's plan to resolve billions of dollars of claims against Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, the most widely used weedkiller in the world.