(Beyond Pesticides, May 7, 2025) Researchers at the University of Caxias do Sul (Brazil) identify 29 peer-reviewed scientific studies with statistically significant findings that tie pesticide use to cancer diagnoses. The literature review is published in Saúde Debate. This collection of clinical trials, as well as epidemiologic, case-control, and experimental studies—from the United States, Brazil, India, France, Egypt, Columbia, Ecuador, Mexico, Italy, and Spain—add to the hundreds of peer-reviewed independent analyses connecting synthetic chemical dependency in food production and land management with mounting public health concerns. Advocates continue to call for holistic solutions that move away from toxic inputs that disproportionately harm the communities responsible for the food on dinner tables, and instead cultivate microbial diversity in soil, rather than prophylactically spray for the sake of pest control. Beyond Pesticides values the importance of scientific integrity and open access to data to inform decision makers on how to adopt healthier practices for their communities. Reliable information for good governance is critical, which is a driving factor in the ongoing compilation of thousands of peer-reviewed literature compiled and curated in the Pesticide-Induced Disease Database and Gateway on Pesticide Hazards and Safe Pest Management. Background and Methodology The main objective of this […]

(Beyond Pesticides, May 1, 2025) Pesticides by themselves are a grave threat to global health. As is global warming. As is antibiotic resistance. Each of these problems has to be analyzed in its own silo to reveal the mechanisms driving its dynamics. But eventually, it must be acknowledged that they actually converge. A common soil arthropod has clearly illustrated how this convergence creates synergistic effects: warming increases pesticide toxicity; pesticide toxicity triggers antibiotic resistance; antibiotic resistance spreads through horizontal gene transfer (movement through the environment to people) and predation. The consequences, not yet fully understood, are nevertheless emerging from accumulating research. A study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials by scientists at six Chinese universities and research centers examines the convergence in springtails (Folsomia candida)—tiny insect-like animals that live in soils worldwide and are commonly used as laboratory subjects. The researchers exposed springtails to the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid at three concentrations and three temperatures. In addition to measuring the springtails’ direct mortality, the researchers also investigated the microbes in the animals’ guts, checking for expression of genes involved in antibiotic resistance. The evidence is unequivocal: imidacloprid exposure at a soil temperature consistent with current and expected warming (30°C, or […]

(Beyond Pesticides, April 23, 2025) Recent reviews of scientific literature, in both Chemosphere and Reports in Public Health, associate Parkinson’s disease (PD), the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disease globally, with pesticide exposure. “Given the pervasive nature of pesticide residues in everyday food consumption and inadequate monitoring of their long-term toxicological impacts, the role of pesticide exposure as a modifiable risk factor for neurological disorders, including PD, warrants urgent attention,” the researchers state in the article in Chemosphere. In describing the history of Parkinson’s and previous research, the authors in Reports in Public Health note that while PD etiology is not fully understood, it is a multifactorial disease. “Hereditary factors are present in approximately 10% of diagnosed cases of Parkinson’s disease, presenting early onset; while the other 90% of cases are categorized as idiopathic or sporadic Parkinson’s disease, occurring in older individuals and may be associated with exposure to environmental agents,” the researchers say. This disease, first described by English physician James Parkinson, M.D. in 1817, involves neurochemical changes that present as “the appearance of cardinal motor symptoms, such as bradykinesia, rigidity, postural instability, and rest tremor, which are essential for the clinical diagnosis of the disease,” the researchers note. The […]

(Beyond Pesticides, April 22, 2025) While it has been widely found that farmworkers bear the brunt of agricultural pesticide exposures in fields and outbuildings, the outdoor use of chemicals contaminating living spaces is documented in an increasing number of studies. Two recent studies add to earlier findings that raise exposure and health concerns. A large European study of house dust contaminants, published in Science of the Total Environment, finds more than 1,200 anthropogenic compounds, including numerous organophosphates, the phthalate DEHP, PCBs, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products. And, a recent Argentine study, “Pesticide contamination in indoor home dust: A pilot study of non-occupational exposure in Argentina,” examines contaminant levels in household dust in villages and towns distributed throughout the Pampas region, where soybeans, corn, sunflowers, and livestock, especially cattle, are raised. The study participants were not agricultural workers, but teachers, government workers, librarians, retirees, college students, doctors, lawyers, artists, and business people. The Argentine study reinforces what has been previously reported, which emphasizes findings that there is no doubt that pesticide residues accumulate in homes adjacent to agricultural fields and pastures. For example, in 2023, Beyond Pesticides reported on a study of 598 California homes near agricultural areas sampled for carpet […]

(Beyond Pesticides, March 14, 2025) Beyond Pesticides celebrates the life and legacy of Joan Dye Gussow, EdD, a leader in the organic and local food movements for decades. Dr. Gussow passed away at 96 years young on Friday, March 6, at her home in Rockland County, New York. As the matriarch of the “eat locally, think globally” movement (New York Times), Dr. Gussow embodied what it means to practice what you preach with decades of experience in pesticide-free, regenerative organic gardening, where she grew seasonal produce for her own consumption. In her book, The Feeding Web, Gussow explains why gardening matters: “Food comes from the land. We have forgotten that. If we do not learn it again, we will die….Are we not, in fact, more helpless than any people before us, less able to fend for ourselves, more cut off from sources of nourishment? What would we do if we could not get to the supermarket?” Dr. Gussow represents the values of community- and people-first organic principles in food and land management systems. By 1971, the year after she published her first book on the relationship between nutrition and children’s performance in school, Dr. Gussow was invited to testify before […]

(Beyond Pesticides, March 7, 2025) In honor of International Women’s Day on Saturday, March 8, 2025, Beyond Pesticides sheds light on the disproportionate risks to women from toxic chemicals that are often unaccounted for and even dismissed throughout pesticide regulatory review and the underlying statutes. In a roundup of Daily News coverage in 2024, as well as the most recent scientific studies in 2025, on the scientific links between pesticide exposure and adverse effects in women, this article highlights the growing inequities in pesticide threats to women’s health.  Women farmers and farmworkers are particularly excluded when assessing pesticide risks. As previously reported by Beyond Pesticides, a study published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine finds that pesticide exposure, especially during puberty, can play a role in ovarian cancer development among female farmers. Although there are many studies that evaluate the risk for cancers among farmers, very few scientific articles cover the risk of ovarian cancer from pesticide exposure.  Additionally, this study suggests the role of hormones in ovarian cancer prognosis and development, highlighting an association with endocrine disruption. Endocrine disruption can lead to numerous health problems in multiple organ systems, including hormone-related cancer development (e.g., thyroid, breast, ovarian, prostate, testicular), reproductive […]

(Beyond Pesticides, March 4, 2025) A study in GeoHealth of pediatric cancers in Nebraska links exposure to agricultural mixtures with the occurrence of these diseases. The authors find statistically significant positive associations between pesticide usage rates and children with cancer, specifically brain and central nervous system (CNS) cancers and leukemia. “Our study is the first to estimate the effect of an agrichemical mixture on the pediatric cancer rate in Nebraska,” the study authors share. “One significant advantage of our study is that we identified the pesticide consistently applied over 22 years in Nebraska counties and then estimated the overall mixture effect of these pesticides on pediatric cancer.” The elevated effect of pesticide mixtures, a reality that is not evaluated in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) pesticide registration program, was reported in Oecologia (2008), documenting harm to amphibian populations even if the concentration of the individual chemicals is within limits considered acceptable. (See additional coverage here.) There is a wide body of science highlighting the disproportionate risk of adverse health effects in children with pesticide exposure. Their small size and developing organ systems, propensity to crawl and play near the ground, tendency for frequent hand-to-mouth motion, and greater intake of […]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 4, 2025) Adopting a fully organic diet can reduce pesticide levels in urine within just two weeks “by an average of 98.6%” and facilitate faster DNA damage repair relative to a diet of food grown with chemical-intensive practices, according to findings from a randomized clinical trial published in Nutrire. The authors explain that their finding “is likely due to two main factors: the presence of compounds characteristic of [an organic] diet, which may have high levels of antioxidants that can protect DNA and also induce DNA repair [], and the absence or decrease in the incidence of pesticides in this type of diet, which are recognized for their genotoxic effects and have the ability to affect the genetic repair system of organisms [].” Public health professionals and affected families continue to sound the alarm on the unprecedented rates of chronic illnesses, many linked to pesticide exposure, as well as the urgency in developing solutions that acknowledge the connection to policies governing agriculture, nutrition policies, and public health. Background and Methodology The purpose of this study is to identify any relationships in health effects of chemical-intensive versus organic diets in a two week-period. More specifically, the authors say […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 13, 2025) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is officially taking comments on whether to issue new restrictions on the herbicide atrazine’s use. Beyond Pesticides is telling the agency that it is time to recognize the biodiversity destruction that atrazine is causing and the viability of alternative organic management practices. The group has released an action and is asking the public to join this campaign to ban atrazine. As a yardstick for what is possible under existing federal pesticide law (the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act), EPA on August 7, 2024 announced that it was taking emergency action to ban the weed killer Dacthal (or DCPA–dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate), leaving many people asking, “Why Dacthal and not other very hazardous pesticides?” The weed killer atrazine (in the triazine chemical family) poses similar elevated hazards to people and the environment, has proven to be impossible to contain, and has viable alternatives. Therefore, we need to challenge EPA to apply the same standard that removed Dacthal from the market to the long list of pesticides that are contributing to a health crisis, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency.  In its current proposal, EPA is choosing to downplay atrazine’s risk to ecosystems, allow more contamination with […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 3, 2025) Pesticides that are sprayed and become airborne significantly disrupt ecological balances and affect nontarget species that are crucial for maintaining biodiversity, according to an article in Environmental Pollution. In this review of studies throughout countries in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, among others, researchers from Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Poland reinforce the science about pesticides’ direct effect on species and the cascading effects of pesticide drift through various trophic levels within food webs that lead to overall devasting population effects. This study “addresses the interconnectedness of these impacts and illustrates the complex threats that pesticide drift poses to biodiversity across multiple ecosystems,” the researchers state. They continue: “Impacts include reduced reproductive rates, changes in growth, development, and/or behavior, modification of diversity or community organization, disruption of food webs, and declines of important species. Pesticides disrupt the delicate balance between species that define a functioning ecosystem. Impacts can be local, transnational, or even continental.” Pesticide drift threatens beneficial species and subsequently the entire agricultural system. The process of pesticide drift, “in which up to 25% of applied pesticides are carried by air currents, can transport chemicals over hundreds or even thousands of […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 2, 2025) Adding to the body of scientific literature on the fast escalating antibiotic resistance crisis is a study published by Chinese scientists in Environmental Science & Technology, which shows that antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in soils move up through trophic levels via predation. Gut microbiomes of soil fauna have been found to be reservoirs of ARGs. How this process operates in soils is vital, because what happens in soil microbes does not stay there. If bacteria altered in soils move up trophic levels, ARGs may strengthen the multicellular agricultural pests the industry is trying to kill—insects, fungi, plants—not to mention bringing their libraries of resistant genes into the microbiomes of vertebrates, including humans. Antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon, but human activity has greatly increased its presence in ecosystems the world over, including in one of the ecological niches of greatest concern to the future of food and human health: soils. Soils are complexes of mineral and organic substrates populated by billions of microorganisms and tiny animals. They are rapidly being degraded by conventional agriculture, forestry, and land management practices generally—more than a third of the world’s agricultural land has already been severely damaged by pesticides, […]

Image: Art Page submission from Carol Moyer, “Monarch Butterfly Sideways with Closed Wings.“ (Beyond Pesticides, December 20, 2024) On December 12, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) opened a public comment period on its proposal to list the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) as a threatened species and to designate critical habitats for the species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Under the proposal, the designated habitats would span approximately 4,395 acres throughout overwintering sites in coastal California. The public comment period will be open until March 12, 2025. These suggested protections call attention to the role of chemical-intensive agriculture in affecting populations of pollinators and other beneficial organisms. George Kimbrell, legal director at the Center for Food Safety, shares in a press release that the “monarch listing decision is a landmark victory 10 years in the making. It is also a damning precedent, revealing the driving role of pesticides and industrial agriculture in the ongoing extinction crisis… But the job isn’t done: Monarchs still face an onslaught of pesticides. The Service must do what science and the law require and promptly finalize protection for monarchs.” In the docket, FWS states, “Under the Act, a species warrants listing if […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 17, 2024) A systematic review of studies on pesticides as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) on body weight, published in Biomedicines, evaluates 36 clinical and preclinical studies and links their agricultural use to obesity. The authors, with the lead researchers from the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Catholic University of Valencia San Vincente, Valencia, Spain, assess studies on a range of pesticides, including organophosphates, pyrethroids, neonicotinoids, and others. In addition to concluding that the EDCs promote obesity, they report that the chemicals cause “other anthropometric changes by altering lipid and glucose metabolism, modifying genes, or altering hormone levels such as leptin.” Endocrine disruption and obesity are public health concerns, and there is a wide body of science linking pesticide exposure to these effects (see more here). “Obesity is considered to be a worldwide pandemic that leads to an increase in medical costs and thus becomes a public health problem,” the researchers share. They continue, “[Obesity] is also associated with the increased production of environmental chemicals, also called environmental obesogens, used mainly in agriculture, as disease vector control, helping to prevent harmful effects caused by fungi, bacteria, or even pests, using pesticides, insecticides, and herbicides, or endocrine disruptors […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 26, 2024) A study in Environment International finds that young children who exhibit higher levels of pesticide metabolites in their urine show more pronounced neurobehavioral problems at the age of ten. Researchers in China document how exposure during early childhood, especially during the sensitive window before the age of two, is linked to hyperactivity/inattention problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). While adding to the body of science connecting pesticide exposure to learning and developmental disorders, this study offers a “novel perspective on characterizing the fluctuation in repeated measurements of multiple environmental chemicals and identifying the potential critical windows,” the authors share. (See previous Daily News coverage here, here, and here.) The researchers analyze data from questionnaires and urine samples through the ongoing Sheyang Mini Birth Cohort Study (SMBCS), which is a long-term prospective cohort study that associates environmental chemical exposure during pregnancy and childhood to negative health effects. This data addresses combined pesticide exposures in young children with neurobehavior analyses at the age of ten to determine any correlation. Within the SMBCS, a total of 1303 pregnant women are enrolled. When the children reached ages one, two, three, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten years […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 19, 2024) Researchers at Stanford University recently published a study in Cancer, an international interdisciplinary journal of the American Cancer Society (ACS), that reveals a correlation for numerous pesticides with increased prostate cancer occurrence and associated death. The study finds that exposure to 22 pesticides is positively associated with prostate cancer. The 22 pesticides include 2,4‐D, acephate, azoxystrobin, bifenthrin, carbaryl, chloropicrin, cloransulam‐methyl, cyhalothrin‐lambda, diflufenzopyr, diuron, glyphosate, hexazinone, linuron, methyl parathion, pendimethalin, propiconazole, sulfosate, thiamethoxam, thifensulfuron, tribenuron methyl, trifloxystrobin, and trifluralin. (See more on 2,4-D and cancer prevalence here and here.) As prostate cancer is a leading national health concern, the authors investigate agricultural pesticide exposure and compared it to prostate cancer incidence and mortality across counties in the contiguous U.S. “The geographic variation in prostate cancer incidence and mortality suggests that regional environmental factors, such as pesticide exposure, may contribute to the development of prostate cancer,” the researchers postulate. In comparing county‐level associations of 295 pesticides and prostate cancer reports, the authors were able to conduct an environment‐wide association study (EWAS) to determine any statistically significant links. “We acquired annual estimated total usage data (kg per county) for all pesticides reported and applied to agricultural crops grown […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 15, 2024) There are many pie-in-the-sky ideas to address the climate crisis while allowing business as usual in the extractive and industrial systems that are causing the crisis. Prominent among them are geoengineering to block sunlight and building industrial plants to prevent carbon dioxide (CO2) from reaching the atmosphere, known as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Like geoengineering, CCS is a “solution for the future that always will be.” It has garnered decades of hype, research, and government funding of prototype projects without doing much of anything to remove carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere. The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) contains numerous revenue streams aimed at coping with the climate crisis, including CCS. But it is a mixed bag of good and bad ideas. Beyond Pesticides analyzed the IRA in 2022, lauding the act’s “provision of unprecedented sums to address the existential threats we face related to climate, biodiversity, and health.” These include about $21 billion for “climate smart” agriculture and programs to reduce petrochemically dependent farming. But the analysis also details the many provisions for infeasible and counterproductive projects. Rather than complex and expensive technological projects, the best practitioners of CCS are […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 13, 2024) A study in Chemosphere, conducted by researchers from the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Germany, reveals the varied lethal and sublethal effects of different glyphosate mixtures through tests on the South African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis (X. laevis). After exposing embryos to four glyphosate formulations, mortality, morphological defects, altered heartbeat rate, and impaired heart-specific gene expression are observed. Glyphosate, an herbicide and popular weed killer in many Roundup® products, is one of the most commonly detected pesticides in waterbodies worldwide, threatening aquatic organisms and overall biodiversity. This study investigates the effects of Glyphosat TF, Durano TF, Helosate 450 TF, and Kyleo, four formulations containing glyphosate, as compared to the effects of pure glyphosate on embryonic development in amphibians. The formulations consist of varying concentrations of the active ingredient glyphosate, as well as other active and inert ingredients. The authors share that, “Glyphosat TF contains 34% glyphosate and 10–20% d-glucopyranose, while Durano contains 39–44% glyphosate and 1–5% N–N-dimethyl-C12-C14-(even numbered)-alkyl-1-amines. In Helosate most of the ingredients are listed – 50–70% glyphosate, 1–10% isopropylamine, 1–3% lauryl dimethyl betaine, 0.25–1% dodecyl dimethylamine. Kyleo only lists the active ingredients glyphosate (27.9%) and 2,4-D (32%).” 2-cell stage embryos (early […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 5, 2024) Published in the journal Frontiers in Toxicology, a recent study uncovers serious flaws in the pesticide registration process at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with an in-depth evaluation of the agency’s failure to protect the public from the harmful effects of five neonicotinoid (neonic) insecticides—as mandated by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and amendments, including Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) of 1996. This coincides with EPA’s ongoing review to renew their approval for the next 15 years (set to be announced in 2025). The report is based on the first comprehensive assessment of unpublished rodent-based Developmental Neurotoxicity (DNT) studies, conducted between 2000-2003 and submitted by pesticide manufacturers as part of the registration process. All five neonicotinoids evaluated—acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiacloprid, and thiamethoxam—are associated with significant shrinkage of brain tissue at the highest dosage, according to EPA data reports (see acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiacloprid, and thiamethoxam). However, with little or no data regarding the chemicals’ impacts at low and mid-level dosages, EPA has either failed to find a “No Observed Adverse Effect Level” (NOAEL) or, seemingly at random, set the NOAEL at the mid-level dosage. The evaluation suggests that perinatal exposure to […]

(Beyond Pesticides, October 10, 2024) On September 16, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced an order allowing Kaizen Technologies LLC to sell off its chlorpyrifos-based insecticide product—Bifenchlor, a known neurotoxicant. This reverses an existing stocks agreement that Kaizen voluntarily negotiated with EPA in August 2022 when the company withdrew Bifenchlor from use. The agency attributes this new order to a November 2023 Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which vacated EPA’s prior 2021 chlorpyrifos ban on food crops (see here). EPA’s practice of permitting the sale and use of existing stocks of canceled pesticides has been a longstanding concern for public health and environmental advocates, as it enables the continued use of petrochemical pesticides that the agency has found to be dangerous. Chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate with adverse health effects on children (see here and here), is now the latest example.  In reporting on the almost unprecedented decision on August 7, 2024, to use its emergency authority to ban Dacthal/DCPA, Beyond Pesticides argues that the “Dacthal Standard” is a positive precedent, a step forward in modern regulatory history; however, EPA’s continued approval of chlorpyrifos’s existing stock, complicated by the 2023 court decision, may suggest otherwise.   As demonstrated historically with […]

(Beyond Pesticides, October 7, 2024) American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a newly revised technical report describing how antibiotic use in animal agriculture contributes to the development of antibiotic resistance in medical use and can adversely affect child health— in the context of this fast-emerging threat to U.S. and global health. This AAP finding comes just as the United Nations (UN) held its second High-Level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) on September 26 (the first was held in 2016) at which global leaders committed “to a clear set of targets and actions, including reducing the estimated 4.95 million human deaths associated with bacterial antimicrobial resistance (AMR) annually by 10% by 2030.” The release from the UN, “World leaders commit to decisive action on antimicrobial resistance,” states, ”The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), known as the Quadripartite, welcome the declaration. The Quadripartite applauds countries for recognising the need for global, regional and national efforts to address AMR through a One Health approach, which recognizes that the health of people, animals, plants and the wider environment, including ecosystems, are closely […]

(Beyond Pesticides, October 3, 2024) The American Academy of Pediatrics published a technical report in September on antimicrobial resistance, which it calls a global public health threat, identifying the health implications of antibiotic use in animal agriculture. The lead authors, both medical doctors from the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, note the rise in antimicrobial-resistant infections that result in increased morbidity, mortality, and health care costs for not only adults, but infants and children as well. “[A]ll use of antimicrobial agents exerts selective pressure that increases the risk of development of resistance,” the authors state, highlighting the importance of limiting antimicrobial uses. “Antimicrobial resistance is an organism’s ability to survive exposure to an antimicrobial agent that was previously an effective treatment. Resistance traits can be acquired either through new mutations or through transfer of genetic material between organisms,” the authors report. Antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses, can be transmitted “through the food supply, direct contact with animals, environmental pathways, and contact with infected or colonized humans,” they continue. Use of antimicrobial agents, especially over extended periods of time or with repeated exposure, can cause resistance to not only that agent, but to multiple agents. As […]

(Beyond Pesticides, October 2, 2024) A comprehensive literature review in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety links a heightened risk of spontaneous abortion (SAB) with pesticide exposure. “The strengths of our study include being the first systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the association between exposure to pesticides and the risk of SAB,” the authors say. This novel approach includes analyzing 18 studies, totaling 439,097 pregnant participants, that allows the researchers to highlight an important public health issue and raise concerns for maternal contact with the harmful chemicals in pesticide products. SAB, also known as spontaneous miscarriage, is defined as the loss of pregnancy occurring prior to 20 weeks of gestation. “It has been observed that approximately 10–15% of pregnancies end up terminating spontaneously,” the researchers report. According to the authors, these negative birth outcomes can be attributed to many factors such as advanced maternal age, anatomical, immunological, and endocrinological disorders, infections, tobacco use, alcohol intake, abnormalities of the placenta, and exposure to heavy metals, radiation, and pesticides. To connect SAB specifically to pesticide exposure in mothers, a literature search was conducted for peer-reviewed studies that include pregnant study participants, ages 16 and above, who report “exposure to one or more pesticides […]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 30, 2024) Public Comment Period on Issues of Organic Integrity Closes Today. Farming is a notoriously risky enterprise, and organic farming presents further challenges along with its multiple benefits. Generally, organic has made great strides over the last several years and is strongly supported by American consumers, findings in the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Census. Even late this year, there is the prospect of several more important changes that will improve the organic certification process and some issues that will take more policy changes to resolve in the future. As a part of this process to ensure the integrity of the USDA organic label and the permitted production practices, Beyond Pesticides urges that the public submit comments TODAY (the last day for the comment period) on issues currently before the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). See two sets of comments on key issues that can be submitted with one click each. Click here on issues related to use of plastic, nonorganic ingredients in processed food, and seeds and plant starts. Click here on inert ingredients, contaminants in compost, and drugs in livestock production. U.S. agriculture overall has remained fairly robust between the USDA Census in […]