Two weeks ago I wrote about genetic trespass. This week it’s chemical trespass. Monsanto makes news again.

An international team of highly respected scientists has just released a stunning report, Roundup and Birth Defects, proving that Monsanto and industry regulators have known for decades that Monsanto’s top-selling weedkiller, Roundup, causes birth defects in laboratory animals.

This week Dow Chemical launched yet another greenwashing PR campaign. On the same day, author Anna Lappé — who's critical contribution to Dow's "virtual conference" on the future of water had been rejected — launched a people's online discussion of how to create a sustainable future, inviting PAN to participate.

Our Co-Director Kathryn Gilje was delighted to contribute to Lappé's forum, with a 60-second video describing the future PAN works toward daily. Other contributors include the National Young Farmers Coalition, Corporate Accountability International, and Food and Water Watch. 

It seems like a no-brainer: If you happen to live or work or go to school across the street from a field or orchard where pesticides are sprayed, you might think, "Maybe I'm breathing some of these pesticides." Especially when the wind blows from the field towards you. Especially when you can smell the pesticides. And you might also think, "Maybe this isn't good for me." Especially when the guys applying the pesticides are wearing Tyvek spacesuits. Especially if you start feeling ill.

And you'd be right to think these thoughts, even though most growers and pesticide applicators will tell you that you're crazy and have nothing to worry about. For years PAN's been working with concerned communities to show that these exposures are real and need to be taken seriously. And now a new study by scientists from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and various states' Departments of Health, corroborates what we've been saying all along.

Nearly 2 million U.S. farmworkers make up the backbone of our agricultural economy, performing some of the most demanding manual labor in any economic sector. Farmworkers are also some of the least protected, experiencing a rate of pesticide poisoning 39 times higher than that found in all other industries combined.

This month Pesticide Action Network joins other farmworker advocates in urging EPA to reduce these over-the-top rates of pesticide-related illness by ensuring that farmworkers have access to basic safety information — in a language they can read.

Who'd have thought? United Farmworkers (UFW) and the California Farm Bureau Federation (CFBF) are on the same side of the table when it comes to farm labor and immigration reform. Since 2007 the Farm Bureau has been supporting and promoting AgJobs — a compromise bill negotiated by farmworker leaders and farmers.

This month CFBF took their message to Washington, D.C. to argue against introduction of E-Verify, a mandatory electronic verification program to determine an employee's eligibility for employment. E-Verify, the Bureau claims, would lead to the collapse of the agricultural industry. UFW agrees.