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The Center for Food Safety today celebrated the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Monsanto v. Geerston Farms, the first genetically modified crop case ever brought before the Supreme Court.  Although the High Court decision reverses parts of the lower courts’ rulings, the judgment holds that a vacatur bars the planting of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Alfalfa until and unless future deregulation occurs.  It is a victory for the Center for Food Safety and the Farmers and Consumers it represents.

When the weed killer Roundup was introduced in the 1970s, it proved it could kill nearly any plant while still being safer than many other herbicides, and it allowed farmers to give up harsher chemicals and reduce tilling that can contribute to erosion.

But 24 years later, a few sturdy species of weed resistant to Roundup have evolved, forcing farmers to return to some of the less environmentally safe practices they abandoned decades ago.
 

With nearly 80,000 largely unregulated agriculture chemicals on the market today, according to the National Toxicology Program, it is not surprising a number of new studies are associating these substances with disease, and drawing clear recommendations for consumers to protect their own health by choosing to eat certified organic foods.

Here, organic certification expert Gwendolyn Wyard at Oregon Tilth, Inc. explains the role of certifiers in the organic system and provides a behind-the-scenes look at the work they do to promote and protect organic integrity. 

Regardless of diet, organic foods are a smart priority. Opting for organic foods is an effectual choice for personal and planetary health. Buying organically grown food--free of harmful chemicals, bursting with more nutrition, taste, and sustainable sustenance--is a direct vote for immediate health and the hopeful future of generations to come.

Last week, and capping at least a decades-long battle by consumer advocates, the EPA announced a ban on the pesticide endosulfan -- one of the last legal organochlorine pesticides, a notorious group of which DDT is a member. Horrifically toxic (possibly more toxic to humans than DDT) and banned in the European Union since 2007, endosulfan remains in common -- though technically restricted -- use, especially on Florida tomatoes* and California and Nevada cotton according to the Pesticide Action Network.

Beccy and I didn't feel like ingesting opium tea or marijuana pancakes, featured menu items in Vang Vieng, a backpackers' mecca in northern Laos. We had just arrived on a bus from Vientiane, the lovely Laotian capital, and we already wanted out.

"Can you take us to Vangvieng Organic Farm?" I asked an idling tuk-tuk driver.

The Kathleen Show in Madison asks that question in an interview with Maria Rodale, author of "Organic Manifesto" and you can listen in at 2 p.m. central time, today.

For more information, click here.

If you're eating non-organic celery today, you may be ingesting 67 pesticides with it, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.

The group, a nonprofit focused on public health, scoured nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine what fruits and vegetables we eat have the highest, and lowest, amounts of chemical residue.