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By Brian Bienkowski
US regulators are poised to approve a pesticide made with a controversial class of toxic chemicals, stoking concerns of new risks for farms across the country.
Syngenta
As regenerative agriculture gains momentum, report warns of “greenwashing”
By Carey Gillam
Billed as a type of food system that works in harmony with nature, “regenerative” agriculture is gaining popularity in US farm country, garnering praise in books and films and as one of the goals of the Make America Healthy Again movement associated with new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Syngenta moving to settle thousands of lawsuits claiming paraquat causes Parkinson’s disease
By Carey Gillam
Besieged by thousands of lawsuits alleging that its paraquat weedkiller causes Parkinson’s disease, Syngenta has entered into an agreement aimed at settling large swaths of those claims.
“We need it” – Debate over dicamba herbicide in hands of Trump’s EPA
By Richard Mertens
Patsy Hopper dreamed of a home in the country with a garden and lots of trees. What she didn’t count on were the herbicides that would come drifting in, year after year, from the farmland around her, killing vegetables in her garden and wildflowers in the ditches and curling the leaves of the trees she had planted.
Profiling of pesticide industry opponents halted after company practices exposed
By Carey Gillam, Margot Gibbs and Elena Debre
A US company that was secretly profiling hundreds of food and environmental health advocates in a private web portal has halted the operations in the face of widespread backlash after its actions were exposed by The New Lede and other reporting partners.
EPA moves to withdraw decision on paraquat, delays report on risks
By Carey Gillam
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving to withdraw its interim regulatory decision on paraquat, announcing that it needs more time to examine the potential health effects of the weed killing chemical that has been widely used in agriculture for decades, but also linked for years to the incurable brain ailment known as Parkinson’s disease.
Despite critics, organic farming thrives in heart of US corn country
By Keith Schneider
WEST BEND, Iowa – People searching for ways to limit the toll industrialized American agriculture takes on communities, land, and water may want to make a visit to Clear Creek Acres in northern Iowa.
EPA not protecting public from neonic exposure, analysis suggests
By Shannon Kelleher
Rodent studies given to US regulators by insecticide makers close to 20 years ago revealed the chemicals could be harmful to the animals’ brain development – data worrisome for humans exposed to the popular pesticides but not properly accounted for by regulators, according to a new research report published this week.
“Defend or be damned” – How a US company uses government funds to suppress pesticide opposition around the world
By Carey Gillam, Margot Gibbs and Elena DeBre
In 2017, two United Nations experts called for a treaty to strictly regulate dangerous pesticides, which they said were a “global human rights concern”, citing scientific research showing pesticides can cause cancers, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, and other health problems.
California passes law ordering review of paraquat weed killer
By Carey Gillam
Efforts by some California lawmakers to ban the controversial weed killing chemical paraquat ended this week with passage of a law that keeps the chemical in use but requires a reevaluation by regulators within the next five years.
Backers of a ban cited scientific evidence linking paraquat to a range of health problems, including the incurable brain disease known as Parkinson’s, as a key reason to outlaw paraquat use in the state.
The California State Assembly earlier this year had approved what was referred to as a “moratorium” on paraquat that would have taken effect in January 2026 and provided for a process that have would have given state regulators an opportunity to reevaluate paraquat and potentially reapprove the chemical with or without new restrictions.
But state Senate amendments killed any moratorium or restriction on use. The bill, as passed, now only requires state pesticide regulators to complete a reevaluation of paraquat by January 2029.
California Assemblymember Laura Friedman said the fact that the legislature passed requirements for a regulatory reevaluation is still a win.
“With the mounting medical evidence indicating that paraquat is simply too toxic to remain in wide use, I am very confident that [state regulators] will not only do a thorough re-evaluation of paraquat, but either ban it outright or place greater restrictions on its use,” Friedman said in a statement.