Pesticide drift regularly occurs in California agricultural communities, and too often it flies under the radar. But in the past several months there have been four major drift incidents that bring the problem into sharper focus.
In late July, the California State Water Resources Control Board approved a stringent "maximum contamination level" (MCL) for a cancer-causing chemical in drinking water. This was a hard-fought and important victory for public health.
For 25 years, 1,2,3-trichloropropane (TCP) has been designated as a carcinogen in the state, and the new mandate to keep it out of drinking water — or at least below detectable amounts — is an important step forward.
August 9 is the U.N. International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. Today, PAN stands with the estimated 370 million Indigenous peoples around the world in their struggles to gain justice and obtain full cultural, economic, social and political rights.
If EPA were doing its job, congressional action wouldn't be needed. Senator Tom Udall has introduced a bill to ban the brain-harming pesticide chlorpyrifos. Learn more
Earlier this week I had a chance to be on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC when legislation was introduced to ban chlorpyrifos. If these bills become law, millions of children and workers in the U.S. and around the world will no longer be exposed to this brain-harming pesticide.
Most Californians would be surprised to learn there are over 700 African American farmers in the state.
A new, large-scale field study is underscoring what we know from previous research: neonicotinoid pesticides are harmful to bees. And the use of neonics as seed coatings on common crops like corn, soy and canola/rapeseed is of particular concern for both managed honey bees and native pollinators.
I wonder if EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt thought no one would notice when he decided to ignore his agency's own scientists and greenlight continued use of Dow Chemical's brain-harming pesticide, chlorpyrifos. If so, he was in for quite a surprise.
With scrutiny of Monsanto's flagship herbicide RoundUp increasing, the corporation's defense of the product is in high gear. Learn more
With scrutiny of Monsanto's flagship herbicide RoundUp increasing, the corporation's defense of the product is in high gear. And right now, a recent Reuters article is doing the work on behalf of the biotech giant to discredit a scientist who contributed to the 2015 International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) finding that glyphosate — RoundUp's active ingredient — is a "probable carcinogen."
