Agriculture
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Agriculture
Cloned Meat and Milk Are Safe, but They Won’t Hit Stores Soon
A Food and Drug Administration analysis concludes that food from cloned animals is safe, but the effort and expense involved in creating these animals means that products from them won't be in markets anytime soon.
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Agriculture
Big footprints
Livestock production carries surprisingly high, and largely hidden, environmental costs.
By Janet Raloff -
Agriculture
Wheat gone wild
Researchers have identified a gene responsible for boosting the protein, iron, and zinc content of some varieties of wild wheat by 10 to 15 percent.
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Agriculture
Organic Dairying Is on Upswing, But No Panacea
Some small dairy farms are making the switch to organic operations to increase profits and distinguish their products from undifferentiated commodities.
By Janet Raloff -
Agriculture
Cow Power
To improve the dire economics of dairying, some farmers are looking to generate commercial quantities of electric power.
By Janet Raloff -
Agriculture
Demand for Ethanol May Drive Up Food Prices
The production of ethanol from corn and other crops for fuel could drive up food prices.
By Ben Harder -
Agriculture
Farm Fresh Pesticides
For people who live near croplands, traces of agricultural chemicals can find their way into homes by hitchhiking on windblown dust.
By Janet Raloff -
Agriculture
Biotech cotton: Less spray but same yield
The way farmers grow transgenic cotton in Arizona lets them skip some of their regular spraying but end up with the same yield as traditional farmers, as well as the same impact on ants and beetles.
By Susan Milius -
Agriculture
Organic Doesn’t Mean Free of Pesticides
Even organic produce, especially root crops, can carry trace residues of long-banned pesticides.
By Janet Raloff -
Agriculture
Wheat Warning—New Rust Could Spread Like Wildfire
A new, yield-slashing wheat blight has emerged in East Africa and could spread far beyond that part of the world.
By Janet Raloff -
Agriculture
Using Light to Sense Plants’ Health and Diversity
Laser scanners may help farmers better tailor when and how much to fertilize their crops, with side benefits for the environment.
By Janet Raloff -
Agriculture
Feds pull approval of poultry antibiotic
The FDA has announced its intent to ban an antibiotic used by poultry farmers because of concerns that continued use of the drug could make it harder to successfully treat food poisoning in people with products from the same class of antibiotics.
By Janet Raloff