Monthly Archives: July 2012

http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/07/28/2927254/valley-farmers-help-save-tricolored.html Shortly before harvest this spring, thousands of rare birds suddenly flocked to a Tulare County wheat field and nested — setting the stage for a vast killing field with baby birds. But the dairy farmer who was growing the wheat as feed for his cows delayed long enough to save thousands of tricolored blackbirds, averting a wildlife disaster. He …

Cotton bolls in the field Heather Ingram/Flickr Genetically modified Bt crops get a pretty bad rap. The pest-killing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacteria protein these plants are bioengineered to make has been accused of harming monarch butterflies, honey bees, rats, and showing up in the blood of pregnant women. Just one problem: None of that is true. (Click on any of …

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-17/foie-gras-goes-underground-at-california-duckeasies-.html Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images A Foie gras dish is prepared at a restaurant in California.   On July 15, about a dozen people walked into a cozy San Francisco restaurant with a window sign reading “private event” to savor foie gras, California’s newest forbidden fruit. They paid $100 apiece for “a 10-course tasting of quasi-legal goodness,” according to the online …

 http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/07/us-declares-largest-natural-disaster-area-ever-due-drought/54479/ The blistering summer and ongoing drought conditions have the prompted the U.S. Agriculture Department to declare a federal disaster area in more than 1,000 counties covering 26 states. That’s almost one-third of all the counties in the United States, making it the largest distaster declaration ever made by the USDA. The declaration covers almost every state in the southern …