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Organic Consumers Association

Mainstream environmental groups have struggled to find the right line on shale natural gas and the hydraulic fracturing or fracking process.

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If an alien species were to visit our school cafeterias at lunchtime, it might conclude that we don't value the health and well-being of the most vulnerable members of our society-our developing children. Not only are our youth daily served low-quality processed products, they are inculcated, at a young age, to the factory-farm model at the heart of our worst environmental problems, namely water pollution, soil erosion, global climate change and fossil fuel depletion.

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There aren't many news items that get your attention faster than a story about a food recall. Whether it's listeria in cantaloupes or salmonella in peanut butter, the news that the food we eat and feed our families might be contaminated is unsettling.

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Farmers have been subsidized in one form or another since early post revolutionary days. President Washington proposed that Congress create a department of agriculture in 1793, to conduct research to improve farming practices. This was the same year the English Parliament established their department of agriculture. Congress rejected Washington's efforts, largely because southern planters saw no need for such an agency.

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The first rule is this: The world is different now. The rules have changed.

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Kentucky finds itself at the center of the emerging battle over who decides what the average person can choose to eat - the government/regulatory apparatus, little more than a front man for Big Ag and the establishment at this point, or the people.

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History has not been kind to the indigenous Raramuri people of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Pushed to remote mountains of a harsh land by Spanish and mestizo colonists, the Raramuri managed to hang on to their culture while eking out an existence based on rain-fed farming and small herd grazing. In recent decades their lands have been invaded again, this time by cattlemen, loggers, miners, dope growers, tourism developers, and soldiers.

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McDonald's said this week that it was no longer using the controversial ground beef additive known as "pink slime" in its hamburger recipe. Taco Bell and Burger King have also reportedly repudiated the "slime," which consists of spare beef trimmings that have been treated with ammonium hydroxide to make them safe and at least semi-palatable.

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Fair Trade USA (FTUSA) released its revised draft Multiple Ingredients Product Policy on January 18, 2012. The Fair World Project (FWP) is pleased that FTUSA has incorporated feedback from various stakeholder groups on important issues, especially with respect to raising the whole product seal threshold to “100%” (actually 95% with allowance for non-fair trade minor ingredients similar to the organic program) and ingredients seal to 20%, and reinstating the commercial availability requirement to source FT forms of ingredients in products even if the minimum 20% FT content threshold is reached. The commercial availability requirement in particular is a crucial market driver to expand markets for fair trade producers. However, there are a number of critical areas for improvement, which are outlined in the Fair World Project's recent statement regarding FTUSA's new revisions.

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Why do we need to worry about the water we are consuming each and every day? When referring to a group of people or someone acting different, the phrase "it must be in the water" is often used as a response. While this phrase is always used comically, you need to know that many of your health problems may indeed be result of what is in the water you are consuming every day.

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Does the occupy movement stand for something positive or something negative? It depends on the purpose and actions of those who are participating.

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It wasn't surprising that the Wall Street Journal published an error-riddled op-ed about climate change last week, essentially saying it was bunk and we shouldn't "panic" about it. We've gotten used to that. But what has really started to amaze me about that newspaper's editorial page and the far right is that they now venture beyond delusion or misinformation. They lie, and they know they are lying.

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SAN FRANCISCO -- California's ban on the sale of pork from "downer" pigs, those that were too feeble to walk before being slaughtered, can't be enforced because a less stringent federal law regulates slaughterhouse inspections, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday.

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Insecticidal Bt toxins such as those produced in genetically engineered plants can be detrimental to human cells. This is a result of recent research led by researchers at the University of Caen (France).

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Today in New York, a U.S. district court heard arguments to determine whether a landmark suit against agricultural giant Monsanto will be allowed to go forward.

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The local grocery store decided to pull several food brands off the shelf after a report stated some ingredients were "genetically modified."

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COLUMBIA - For the past 20 years, much of MU biology professor Frederick vom Saal's research, thoughts and time have converged into one point: trying to get endocrine disruptors - chemicals that interfere with the hormone system and can cause obesity, infertility and cancer - out of daily use.

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