Just Label It, News Roundup 1-5

This week in the news, South Australia voted to extend its ban on the growing of GM crops until 2025. Corn syrup reins supreme in the American diet, according to a new article that states sweetener production of glucose, dextrose, and high-fructose corn syrup would cover New Jersey. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s last farming census, young people are returning to farming: The number of farmers between the ages of 25 and 34 increased 2.2 percent between 2007 and 2012. Kimbal Musk has an accelerator program called Square Roots, which teaches millennials how to farm out of a shipping container in Brooklyn. New data released recently by the Food and Drug Administration shows a rise in pesticide residues detected in thousands of samples of commonly consumed foods. Monsanto will give cash back to U.S. farmers who buy a weed killer that has been linked to widespread crop damage, offering an incentive to apply its product even as regulators in several U.S. states weigh restrictions on its use. And lastly, neonicotinoids, banned on flowering crops, were found in nearly all rivers tested in England, increasing concerns over their impact on fish and birds.

South Australia is GM-free-secure till 2025

South Australia [SA] is set to extend its ban on the growing of GM crops until 2025 after a bill put forward by the Greens passed the Upper House by a single vote. Extending SA’s moratorium on GM crops till 2025 puts any final decision on GM back to Parliament where it belongs, says a press release from the NGO Gene Ethics. Without an extension and review process, the GM-free law would have lapsed on 1 September 2019.

America’s Corn Syrup Habit Could Fill New Jersey

The U.S. corn belt is large enough to cover the entire D.C.-to-Boston train corridor. Sweetener production of glucose, dextrose and high-fructose corn syrup would cover New Jersey.

Elon Musk’s brother is helping millennials quit their desk jobs and become farmers.

Young people are returning to farming: the number of farmers between the ages of 25 and 34 increased 2.2 percent between 2007 and 2012, according to the USDA’s last farming census.

Kimbal Musk has an accelerator, Square Roots, that teaches millennials how to farm out of a shipping container in Brooklyn. Musk says today’s millennial farmers are trying to make a difference in how food is produced. 

Hold the plum pudding: US food sampling shows troubling pesticide residues.

New data released recently by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shows a rise in the occurrence of pesticide residues detected in thousands of samples of commonly consumed foods. Documents obtained from the agency through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests also show the government is bracing for more, with the use of at least one controversial weed killing chemical – the herbicide is known as 2,4-D – expected to triple in the next year.

Monsanto Now Paying Cash to Farmers Who Use Weedkiller Linked to Millions Worth of Destroyed Crops.

Monsanto Co will give cash back to U.S. farmers who buy a weed killer that has been linked to widespread crop damage, offering an incentive to apply its product even as regulators in several U.S. states weigh restrictions on its use.

English rivers polluted by powerful insecticides, first tests reveal.

Neonicotinoids, banned on flowering crops, were found in nearly all rivers tested, increasing concerns over their impact on fish and birds.