The makers of robot weeders say the machines can reduce pesticide use and be part of a more sustainable food system
In the corner of an Ohio field, a laser-armed robot inches through a sea of onions, zapping weeds as it goes.
This field doesn’t belong to a dystopian future but to Shay Myers, a third-generation farmer whose TikTok posts about farming life often go viral.
Continue reading...Insects have declined by 75% in the past 50 years – and the consequences may soon be catastrophic. Biologist Dave Goulson reveals the vital services they perform
I have been fascinated by insects all my life. One of my earliest memories is of finding, at the age of five or six, some stripy yellow-and-black caterpillars feeding on weeds in the school playground. I put them in my empty lunchbox, and took them home. Eventually they transformed into handsome magenta and black moths. This seemed like magic to me – and still does. I was hooked.
In pursuit of insects I have travelled the world, from the deserts of Patagonia to the icy peaks of Fjordland in New Zealand and the forested mountains of Bhutan. I have watched clouds of birdwing butterflies sipping minerals from the banks of a river in Borneo, and thousands of fireflies flashing in synchrony at night in the swamps of Thailand. At home in my garden in Sussex I have spent countless hours watching grasshoppers court a mate and see off rivals, earwigs tend their young, ants milk honeydew from aphids, and leaf-cutter bees snip leaves to line their nests.
Continue reading...Makers say machine could be part of an agricultural revolution of automation and sustainability
In a sunny field in Hampshire, a killer robot is on the prowl. Once its artificial intelligence engine has locked on to its target, a black electrode descends and delivers an 8,000-volt blast. A crackle, a puff of smoke, and the target is dead – a weed, boiled alive from the inside.
It is part of a fourth agricultural revolution, its makers say, bringing automation and big data into farming to produce more while harming the environment less. Pressure to cut pesticide use and increasing resistance to the chemicals meant killing weeds was the top priority for the farmers advising the robot company.
Continue reading...Analysis contradicts claims that the environmental impact of pesticides is falling, say scientists
The toxic impact of pesticides on bees and other pollinators has doubled in a decade, new research shows, despite a fall in the amount of pesticide used.
Modern pesticides have much lower toxicity to people, wild mammals and birds and are applied in lower amounts, but they are even more toxic to invertebrates. The study shows the higher toxicity outweighs the lower volumes, leading to a more deadly overall impact on pollinators and waterborne insects such as dragonflies and mayflies.
Continue reading...Farmers ‘relieved’ as chemical sanctioned for emergency use, despite EU-wide ban backed by UK
A pesticide believed to kill bees has been authorised for use in England despite an EU-wide ban two years ago and an explicit government pledge to keep the restrictions.
Following lobbying from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and British Sugar, a product containing the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam was sanctioned for emergency use on sugar beet seeds this year because of the threat posed by a virus.
Continue reading...Estimated 120,000 hectares stripped bare by rodents and now browning in heatwave
Large swathes of Germany’s farmland are being decimated by plagues of field mice leading to significant crop loss, according to the country’s national farming association.
In some parts of the country, a quarter of the arable land is affected, leading to calls for compensation as well as a relaxation on rules governing the use of pesticides.
Continue reading...The research, used to help avoid a ban, claimed ‘severe impacts’ on farming if glyphosate was outlawed
Monsanto secretly funded academic studies indicating “very severe impacts” on farming and the environment if its controversial glyphosate weedkiller were banned, an investigation has found.
The research was used by the National Farmers’ Union and others to successfully lobby against a European ban in 2017. As a result of the revelations, the NFU has now amended its glyphosate information to declare the source of the research.
Continue reading...Organisation accused of kowtowing to big business by appointing former Rwandan agriculture minister with links to agro-industry
A global summit on food security is at risk of being dominated by big business at the expense of farmers and social movements, according to the UN’s former food expert.
Olivier De Schutter, the former UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said food security groups around the world had expressed misgivings about the UN food systems summit, which is due to take place in 2021 and could be crucial to making agriculture more sustainable.
Continue reading...Use of harmful chemicals is higher in poorer nations, according to data analysed by Unearthed
The world’s biggest pesticide companies make billions of dollars a year from chemicals found by independent authorities to pose high hazards to human health or the environment, according to an analysis by campaigners.
The research also found a higher proportion of these highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) in the companies’ sales in poorer nations than in rich ones. In India, 59% of sales were of HHPs in contrast to just 11% in the UK, according to the analysis.
Continue reading...British-backed plantation firm vows to address claims that underpaid palm oil workers have been exposed to toxic chemicals
The UK development bank has been accused of failing to protect workers from exposure to dangerous pesticides and paying “extreme poverty” wages on palm oil plantations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Human Rights Watch said the CDC group, along with three other European development banks, had failed to properly oversee its investments in Feronia, one of Africa’s largest palm oil companies.
Continue reading...Cancer rates are the highest in the country, drug addiction is rife, and 900 farmers have killed themselves in two years. How did Punjab turn toxic?
The road to Langroya village weaves its way through fields rich with crops that offer a vivid snapshot of India’s kitchens. There is wheat, rice, sugarcane, maize, mustard seed and a rich variety of vegetables that have made this corner of the country India’s most important agricultural region.
Like the majority of their compatriots in Punjab, Langroya’s residents rely on farming for their existence. About three-quarters of the state’s 30 million-strong population is involved in agriculture, with wheat the number one commodity. But while Punjab is known as “India’s bread basket”, there are challenges amid the abundance.
Continue reading...We write as chief scientific advisors to the European commission, authors of the scientific opinion on EU authorisation processes of plant protection products referred to in your article (Science institute that advised EU and UN ‘actually industry lobby group’”, 3 June). We are a completely independent expert group basing our reports on a wide range of sources and evidence, including academia, practitioners, NGOs and industry, but quite separate from them.
The statement in your article that our report recommends “a slew of industry positions” on pesticides is incorrect. What was recommended in our report was that the European commission “facilitates a broader discussion throughout society to establish an EU-wide, shared vision for food production, including the role of plant protection products therein”. Likewise, it is incorrect to say that we recommend replacing current rules outlawing any products that could harm human health with a US-style concept of “acceptable risk”. What our report says is that the European commission should “re-examine the treatment of hazards, risks, costs and benefits – to provide reassurance that the system is fit for purpose”.
Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer (Chair), Sir Paul Nurse and Professor Janusz Bujnicki
European commission group of chief scientific advisors
International Life Sciences Institute used by corporate backers to counter public health policies, says study
An institute whose experts have occupied key positions on EU and UN regulatory panels is, in reality, an industry lobby group that masquerades as a scientific health charity, according to a peer-reviewed study.
The Washington-based International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) describes its mission as “pursuing objectivity, clarity and reproducibility” to “benefit the public good”.
Continue reading...Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle tells US she would be more open to its interests in UN role
Europe’s candidate to run the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which guides policymakers around the world, has promised the US she will “not defend the EU position” in resisting the global spread of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
In a bid for US support, Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle told senior US officials at a meeting in Washington on 15 May that under her leadership the FAO would be more open to American interests and accepting of GMOs and gene editing, according to a US official record of the meeting seen by the Guardian.
Continue reading...The recent news about glyphosate and cancer only highlights a broader problem with our system: our obsession with killing the natural world is poisoning us
The recent headlines announcing billions of dollars in damages to people who have gotten cancer after using Roundup are just the tip of a very large iceberg. There are over 1,000 lawsuits against Monsanto’s parent company, Bayer, waiting to be heard by the courts. Beyond concerns about that specific glyphosate-based weedkiller, we should be talking about the innumerable other potentially punishing chemicals in our food system.
After all, our food and our health are deeply connected. American healthcare spending has ballooned to $3.5tn a year, and yet we are sicker than most other developed countries. Meanwhile, our food system contains thousands of chemicals that have not been proven safe and many that are banned in other countries.
Continue reading...Wildlife and human health are threatened say scientists as Syngenta accepts ‘undeniable demand’ for change
Pesticides and antibiotics are polluting streams across Europe, a study has found. Scientists say the contamination is dangerous for wildlife and may increase the development of drug-resistant microbes.
More than 100 pesticides and 21 drugs were detected in the 29 waterways analysed in 10 European nations, including the UK. A quarter of the chemicals identified are banned, while half of the streams analysed had at least one pesticide above permitted levels.
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