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agriculture

08/21/2018 / By RJ Jhonson

Minnesotan farmers use 10-15% more fertilizer than they actually need for healthy crops

Minnesota’s farmers are using more fertilizer than needed, say the state’s agricultural officials. The state government’s response to regulate the use of nitrogen fertilizer – a bid to ensure clean drinking water at, according to detractors, the risk of impairing one of Minnesota’s biggest industries – is seemingly a question of which gets the higher […]

04/03/2018 / By Ralph Flores

What is the right amount of nitrogen in agriculture? Not enough contributes to hunger, too much damages the environment

Nitrogen is essential in crop production, but it comes with a caveat: Use too much of it, and you risk polluting the environment; use too little, and you risk limiting your crop yield. This was also the focus of an article that appeared in the journal Nutrient Cycling in Agrosystems. The paper, led by researchers from […]

03/04/2018 / By David Williams

Tap water in Illinois is polluted with high levels of nitrate from the GMO corn belt

Nitrates are known to be quite dangerous to humans as they can serve as the catalyst for many types of serious diseases. Now, a new report on the northwest Illinois corn belt suggests that nitrate pollution could put the lives of thousands of residents at risk, and worse, introduce several long-term negative consequences. Based on […]

03/01/2018 / By Jhoanna Robinson

Big Ag is using more synthetic fertilizers, and the nitrogen is causing dead zones and algal blooms in our waterways

With more nitrogen flooding our waterways, creating algal blooms and dead zones, scientists have warned that the use of synthetic fertilizers should be significantly reduced. In a seminar room at New York University in January, nitrogen experts from around the world painted a picture of how a nitrogen-soaked planet would appear. The group conducted the […]

02/11/2018 / By Earl Garcia

Green leafy vegetables irrigated with wastewater may contain high levels of toxic heavy metals

A study published in the IOSR Journal of Environmental Science, Toxicology and Food Technology showed that irrigating agricultural fields and green leafy vegetables with wastewater may result in potentially hazardous buildup of heavy metals including copper (Cu), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn), as well as nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr) and cadmium (Cd). “On the survey of study […]

02/08/2018 / By Earl Garcia

Phosphorus from fertilizer runoff is polluting freshwater sources all over the world

A recent study published in the journal Water Resources Research revealed that phosphorus pollution as a result of human activities appeared to have seeped into Earth’s freshwater bodies in the past few years. Scientists explained that phosphorus is a common component of mineral and manure fertilizers due to its efficacy in increasing crop yield. However, the study carried […]

10/23/2017 / By Ethan Huff

FDA pushing back safety compliance deadlines for agricultural water standards because they are “complicated” and “costly”

When it comes to granting its blessing for substances to be legally marketed as preventing or curing disease, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seems to have no problem extorting upwards of several million dollars per substance in “New Drug Application” (NDA) fees from companies who wish to buy the government’s permission to do […]

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