the weed-killer commonly known as Roundup or glyphosate. In the past decade as the use of this potent chemical has skyrocketed monarch populations have plummeted.
Over the past decade Roundup has become the most popular weed-killer in the country. Today's farms use it to grow Monsanto's genetically modified Roundup Ready corn
and soy engineered to tolerate the herbicide which the company also manufactures. Highway and utility crews use glyphosate to control plant growth along roadsides and along utility lines.
If you use weed-killer to stop grass from sprouting in your driveway it might contain glyphosate.
Glyphosate isn't a selective weed-killer it harms a lot plants. One of the plants it's wiping out is milkweed the sole source of food for monarch butterfly larvae.
The EPA could also consider requiring safety zones free of herbicides in and around farms to protect monarch-friendly habitat.
There are other herbicides which are just as harmful however so the EPA needs to ensure that whatever replaces glyphosate isn't just substituting one harm for another.
and other herbicides and encouraging a more sustainable approach to farming can help ensure that the monarchs'astonishing migration will be an event that every generation can witness.
Our industrialized agricultural system relies heavily on the intensive use of chemical fertilizers herbicides and pesticides
Other tips for women include eating organic food to avoid the pesticides found in certain fruits
Limit exposure to pesticides. Other women not just those who are need pregnant to know about environmental chemicals too Conry said.
or plants that are resistant to a greener herbicide there are legitimate problems such as weeds acquiring the GM herbicide resistance.
Eagles were eliminated just about from the bay before the insecticide DDT was banned in 1972 and Byrd began logging the bird's comeback in the region in 1977.
It is important to carefully wash a banana peel before eating it due to the pesticides that may be sprayed in banana groves.
The pollen fed to the healthy bees contained an average of nine different types of pesticides and fungicides.
The researchers discovered that the healthy bees that ate the fungicides which are supposedly harmless to bees were actually three times more likely to become infected with a parasite that's known to cause CCD.
What the study indicated is that there may not be a single cause of CCD it could be a complex web of many chemicals that involves different types and classes of pesticides and fungicides.
The caterpillars can be sprayed with pesticides as soon as they are detected. Tanzania has a network of pheromone traps set up as monitoring devices to attract the moths
The country also stockpiles pesticides to deal with the caterpillars. But because it was taken by surprise,
farmers who could not get hold of pesticides set fire to worms and crops, says Tucker. Government teams are now spraying pesticides imported from Accra in Ghana,
he says. Unfortunately, the pupae have burrowed now underground and are out of reach of pesticides, so Liberia must prepare for a second wave of moths.
The idea of using pheromones to corral the moths together for destruction won't work, says Grzywacz there will be too many to control cost-effectively.
Neighbouring countries are already spraying pesticides in preparation. Grzywacz is working on spraying a biological control agent
Europe set to crack down on pesticides: Nature Newsthe European union (EU) is due next month to finally approve controversial legislation to tighten up pesticide rules.
The legislation has been three years in the making, with a steady watering down of the rules in response to claims that they will lower crop yields and raise food prices.
and licensing of pesticides and incorporate a directive on their sustainable use. Under the existing system,
new pesticides are authorized by the European commission. Each member state then decides whether to approve their use in their own countries.
The new legislation aims make the approval of these compounds more uniform throughout Europe There was also growing public concern that the existing system lets through pesticides that endanger people's health.
pesticides do not have to be so hazardous that they are carcinogenic, toxic to reproduction or have equally dangerous properties,
says Elliott Cannell, co-ordinator at the Pesticide Action Network in London. There must be safer alternatives.
Under the existing rules, pesticides are licensed for 10 years. Under the new regulations, once these licenses come up for renewal,
The directive promotes the use of non-chemical pest-control methods, bans aerial crop spraying without specific authorization and curbs the use of pesticides in areas such as parks and playgrounds.
Member states will also have to adopt targets for reduced use of pesticides. The new licensing rules are based on the hazardous properties of substances within the product rather than,
The lobby group initially said that the new rules would lead to the withdrawal of so many pesticides that crop yields will fall drastically,
Individual member states will then have to adopt National Action Plans to reduce the risks of pesticides
for example, that the fungicide carbendazim classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction as well as metconazole and tebuconazole, also fungicides considered to be endocrine disrupting,
Missouri, announced that it was halting development of transgenic herbicide-resistant strains of wheat after US farmers expressed concerns that they would not be able to export the crops to other countries.
two independent groups of researchers report that the technique can also be used to engineer herbicide-resistant corn and tobacco1,
The team has used zinc fingers to replace a gene called IPK1 with an herbicide-resistance gene.
'Voytas's group has engineered herbicide-resistant tobacco by inserting specific mutations into a gene called Sur.
when developers are racing to create crops that produce many different pesticides. Insects can become resistant to individual insecticides in much the same way as bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics.
One way to reduce this threat is to adopt a'pyramid'approach and create crops that produce multiple toxins that target the same pest.
Missouri, intends to launch a line of maize (corn) that contains eight different genes that make the crop resistant to herbicides and to attack by insects.
This could avoid the problems associated with synthetic pesticides, which can damage ecosystems and tend to lose their impact as pests acquire resistance.
John Pickett, a biological chemist from the Rothamsted Research institute in Harpenden, UK, is pleased also that negative environmental effects of pesticides can be avoided.
Pesticide review: A review committee assessing the safety of methyl iodide a pesticide used to fumigate soils began work on 24 september in Sacramento, California.
The chemical was approved for agricultural use by the US Environmental protection agency in October 2007, prompting protests from activists and scientists.
and a 2009 report from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) warned of significant health risks.
Strawberry pesticide leaves sour taste: Nature Newsa review committee in Sacramento, California, begins on 24 september to assess the science behind methyl iodide a pesticide that has been approved for agricultural use by the US Environmental protection agency (EPA),
but which faces a storm of opposition from activists and scientists. At issue is a set of apparently conflicting assessments of the chemical's health hazard.
A 2009 report from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR however, concludes that methyl iodide fumigation results in significant health risks for workers and the general population,
says chemist Susan Kegley of the California-based Pesticide Action Network North america. But methyl iodide is by some measures four times as toxic as methyl bromide,
One reason for the difference between the EPA and the California DPR reports is that the EPA effectively assumed that no one would get hit by a'plume'of pesticide created by stagnant air pockets
if California rejects the pesticide. Hoffmann says he has faith in the process.
Fungus genome boosts fight to save North american forests: Nature Newscanadian researchers have decoded the DNA of the tree-killing fungus found in the mouths of mountain pine beetles,
Reichman noted that Alvarez-Buylla showed newly grown test plants believed to harbour transgenes were resistant to herbicide,
indicating that they bore transgenes just like commercial seeds modified to be herbicide resistant. Fagan disputes the criticism.
Pelican populations were devastated by hunting, habitat destruction and the pesticide DDT, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service says there are now more than 650,000 in the United states, the Caribbean and Latin america.
Nature Newsa controversial herbicide-spraying programme to tackle cocaine production in Colombia has few adverse environmental impacts.
Spraying the herbicide glyphosate on coca plants is a key tool in the war on cocaine.
and surfactants that are used to increase the herbicide's potency. The surfactants increase glyphosate's solubility,
Of eight species of South american frogs studied, four showed some sensitivity to the herbicide mixture at concentrations below the application rate used in Plan Colombia,
including deforestation and the use of pesticides. The results of the various studies are published in a series of articles in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health.
the pond studies of frogs, he notes, do not give enough information about the soils present to be sure that they were not adsorbing more of the herbicide mixture than would normally occur in the wild.
as long as it chooses to continue the herbicide-spraying strategy to tackle its cocaine problem.
The dog cloner: Nature Newsfor someone who had emerged just from a 40-month trial, Byeong-Chun Lee seemed remarkably energetic.
if successful, would reduce the need to use chemical insecticides. Patients at the last chance clinic In February, artist Dunham Aurelius and accountant Sally Massagee got a thorough check-up at the US National institutes of health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.
Its herbicide-tolerant soya bean'Cultivance, 'which was developed with Embrapa, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Cooperation, can now be sold in Brazil.
and a Monsanto strain that is resistant to glyphosate-based herbicides such as'Roundup'.'And what about states that refuse to comply?
Nature Newsa bacterial protein used in a common pesticide kills intestinal parasitic roundworms in mice and may become a treatment option for humans,
protecting themselves from insects without any pesticides. This bacterium is a natural soil predator of nematodes,
which are engineered to produce pest-killing toxins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, use less insecticide. Increased planting of herbicide-tolerant crops may also have reduced the use of many herbicides that linger in soil and waterways
while increasing the use of glyphosate, a herbicide thought to be less harmful to the environment (see graphic).
Farmers growing transgenic crops are more likely to practise'conservation'tillage, which reduces soil erosion. They have seen also economic benefits,
with lower production costs due to decreased insecticide and pesticide use and higher yields in some cases.
because it avoids the spraying of dangerous pesticides the risk-benefit equation is clearly in favour of its use.
but there are others in particular some crops engineered to be resistant to this or that herbicide for
For example, some GMOS result in increased use of herbicides, which can lead to concentration of these chemicals in the environment and negative effects.
because there are a lot of health problems in developing countries that have been linked to the spraying of pesticides. Public funding of agricultural research in rich countries has declined,
Some farmers aren't seeing big yield increases with the company's new herbicide-tolerant soya bean line, Roundup Ready 2 Yield.
which incorporates eight genes conferring herbicide tolerance and insect protection. If farmers don't switch to Roundup Ready 2,
is flexing its muscles with the imminent release of its herbicide-tolerant, insect-resistant Viptera maize.
and the pesticides used to control the bollworm damaged the environment and caused thousands of deaths from poisoning each year.
because less broad-spectrum pesticide was used following the introduction of Bt cotton. Mirids are not susceptible to the Bt toxin
when farmers used less pesticide, says Wu. The study is published in this week's issue of Science1.
The rise of mirids has driven Chinese farmers back to pesticides they are currently using about two-thirds as much as they did before Bt cotton was introduced.
As mirids develop resistance to the pesticides, Wu expects that farmers will soon spray as much as they ever did.
The team attributed this to increased pesticide use to deal with secondary pests. The conclusion was controversial,
As farmers sprayed pesticides against the weevils, bollworms developed resistance and rose to become the primary pest.
dosage and frequency of pesticide use needed to tackle new pests. When farmers decide how to control pests,
they tend to overuse pesticides, he says. Wu and his colleagues are seeking the most effective way to use pesticide,
and trying to reduce mirid damage to cotton by growing crops the pests prefer nearby.
Scientists fume over California's pesticide plans: Nature Newschemists and activists encountered another setback in their battle to see methyl iodide banned from agricultural use last week,
a pesticide that is known to contribute to depletion of the ozone layer and is being phased out under the Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting substances.
Methyl iodide is an effective pesticide and ozone-friendly, but it is known a mutagen, and it could cause cancer,
But a report by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) concluded in 2009 that the compound posed significant health risks.
to settle the debate (see'Strawberry pesticide leaves sour taste').'The review sided with the assessment of the California DPR,
The economic interests of farmers and pesticide manufacturers affect these decisions as much as science reports,
There's probably no better example than pesticide regulation where you see strong interests attempt to affect policy.
The review members are experts in assessing pesticide risks not in regulatory risk management that leads to decisions on registration, the DPR said in a statement to Nature.
Organic fields where only a limited number of man-made chemicals can be used had far greater evenness than those where pesticides were applied regularly.
and is considered to be the least toxic alternative to chemical pesticides. But a new study has revealed adverse effects on the reproductive success of birds.
Pierre Mineau, a pesticide ecotoxicologist at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, says that the results could help to explain the drop in numbers of insectivorous birds occurring in North america.
Bti is still much safer than chemical pesticides, says Mineau. The message that should not be taken away from this study is that people should go back to using chemical pesticide,
he says.
Mosquito saliva may signal infection outbreaks: Nature Newsbaiting mosquito traps with cards soaked in honey,
Since 1996, Monsanto has held a European patent on genes that give soya beans resistance to the company's Roundup herbicide specifically the active ingredient glyphosate.
Sagers and her team found two varieties of transgenic canola in the wild one modified to be resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide (glyphosate),
and one resistant to Bayer Crop science's Liberty herbicide (gluphosinate). They also found some plants that were resistant to both herbicides,
showing that the different GM plants had bred to produce a plant with a new trait that did not exist anywhere else.
By contrast, her research team found feral populations of herbicide-resistant canola growing along roads, near petrol stations and grocery stores, often at large distances from areas of agricultural production.
and tested for the presence of proteins that could give it resistance to either of the herbicides.
Of these, 80%had at least one herbicide-resistant transgene (41%were resistant to Roundup and 40%resistant to Liberty.
Sagers says the discovery of plants that are resistant to both herbicides shows that these feral populations of canola have been part of the landscape for several generations.
But those that have evolved resistance to both herbicides could become a weed problem for farmers,
if you are worried about herbicide use, she says. A major advantages of herbicide-resistant crops is that non-selective herbicides can be used,
reducing the number of applications needed. But if transgenic crops escape and breed with related weed species,
and different and more herbicides might have to be used.
Phosphate fertilizer warning for China: Nature Newsresearchers are warning that inappropriate management of phosphate fertilizer
costing them millions of dollars annually in crop losses and insecticide sprays. They asked the US Environmental protection agency for permission to dispense with the refuges
and farmers had stopped using insecticide sprays to keep the pinkie population in check. So far, no live pink bollworm caterpillars have been found in bolls of cotton this season,
These genetic clues could aid the development of fungicides and disease-resistant varieties of potato that the pathogen will find much more difficult to adapt to and overcome.
including fungicides, towards the genetically similar regions, where evolution is slower, will make it more difficult for the pathogen to evolve resistance to the controls.
Whereas resistance to a particular herbicide might be pinned down to one gene, the response to drought plays out across the genome.
In addition to laws on soil protection and livestock management, regulations on the use of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides the use of which is much higher per hectare in China than in developed countries are needed urgently,
The grass has been altered genetically to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate, which would make it easier to keep a lawn weed-free.
'Scotts took advantage of both techniques to construct the herbicide-resistant Kentucky bluegrass that put the USDA's regulatory powers to the test.
and herbicide resistance, were stable in the field. I would expect that by the end of the decade,
and Sangamo Biosciences in Richmond, California, announced that they had used enzymes called zinc-finger nucleases to insert a gene for herbicide resistance at a specific site in the maize genome (V. K. Shukla et al.
Nature Newskey weapons in the fight against malaria, pyrethroid insecticides, are losing their edge. Over the past decade, billions of dollars have been spent on distributing long-lasting pyrethroid-treated bed nets and on indoor spraying.
Alternatives such as organophosphates and carbamates are available for indoor spraying, although they cost more and are less effective.
But pyrethroids are the only insecticides approved by THE WHO for use in bed nets. We have lots of our eggs in the pyrethroid basket,
and chief executive of the nonprofit Innovative Vector Control Consortium, a public-private venture set up in 2005 to develop new insecticides and monitoring tools.
that control programmes rotate insecticides sprayed indoors, using pyrethroids one year and a different class the next.
Lines says that new combinations of insecticides also need to be developed so that mosquitoes resistant to one would be killed by the other.
a different class of insecticides should be used for wall spraying, he adds. Ultimately, entirely new classes of insecticides particularly those that can be applied to bed nets are needed to alleviate the dependence of malaria-control efforts on pyrethroids.
For indoor spraying, some longer-lasting and more cost-effective non-pyrethroid insecticides should be available by next year,
Hemingway says, although developing wholly new classes will take five to seven years. Repurposed agricultural insecticides might also act as a stopgap were resistance to pyrethroids to develop rapidly.
Research targeting mosquito control is compared grossly underfunded with that on malaria drugs and vaccines she adds,
but with more than two-thirds less pesticide and a quarter less fertiliser, found a six-year long study conducted in China.
They could also make large savings on fertilisers and pesticides, which typically represent 60-70 per cent of the total cost of rice production.
Having evolved the ability to withstand glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto s popular herbicide Roundup,
North carolina, part of the US Department of agriculture (USDA), who notes that 383 known weed varieties have the genetic defences to survive one or more herbicides."
The conventional approach is to switch to a different herbicide and engineer crops to withstand it.
the plants can break down both of the chemicals in Dow s newly formulated herbicide Enlist."
(although not the most toxic) in the defoliant Agent orange, used during the Vietnam war. Researchers are also wary of engaging in a continuing arms race with nature."
The chief worry is that new herbicide blends will accelerate the emergence of resistance to multiple chemicals.
) Mortensen expects that increased reliance on two herbicides will favour plants with multiple mutations for resistance to each,
or to confine herbicides in cell vacuoles.""These are traits that could overcome more than one chemical mode of action
and how frequently the herbicide combinations are used. Although Dow will include a set of recommended management practices with its products,
herbicide resistance is already forcing farmers to combine such techniques with conventional herbicide use. New machinery could also help.
because they ve survived herbicide applications, so that s why we re pushing these harvesting techniques,
appropriate herbicide application, says agronomist Charles Benbrook, a research professor at Washington state University s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural resources in Puyallup."
But health officials fear that the spread of insecticide-resistant mosquitoes could bring about a resurgence of the disease.
Such failures could reverse the recent drop in malaria mortality credited to insecticide spraying in the home and coating of bed nets,
according to THE WHO. Insecticide resistance could also result in as many as 26 Â million further cases a year,
WHOTHE WHO report says that insecticide-resistant mosquitoes already inhabit 64 Â malaria-ridden countries (see map.
pyrethroids are the only insecticides used to treat bed nets, as well as the first choice for household spraying.
Health authorities in Somalia, Sudan and Turkey have reported also sporadic resistance to the two other classes of insecticides recommended by THE WHO for safe and effective household spraying:
carbamates and organophosphates. Resistance has evolved probably several times independently, and is now spreading as extensive use of pyrethroids
and other insecticides favours resistant mosquitoes.""In 2004, there were pockets of resistance in Africa, and now there are pockets of susceptibility,
THE WHO recommends rotating the classes of pesticides used to spray houses, and developing safe and effective non-pyrethroid insecticides that can be used to treat bed nets.
To implement all of THE WHO s suggestions would cost $200 Â million on top of the $6 Â billion that THE WHO requested last year to fund existing malaria-control programmes.
Their spending on mosquito control is already high in 2009,39%of the Global Fund s malaria expenditures went towards insecticide-treated bed nets and household spraying,
 For now, pyrethroids are the only class of insecticides approved by THE WHO for bed nets
Switzerland, says that it has in the pipeline a bed net coated with a non-pyrethroid insecticide one that does not belong to any of the four WHO-approved classes
In the meantime, health officials may be able to keep malaria at bay by swapping insecticides. The report notes that in Colombia
for instance, mosquitoes regained susceptibility to pyrethroids after five years of treatment with an organophosphate. But some African countries lack the surveillance needed to spur such an approach.
Because the crop is resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as Roundup, farmers can spray they fields with the chemical to control weeds without risking damage to their crops.
around 94%of the soya beans and 88%of the maize (corn) grown in the United states is engineered genetically to resist herbicides, insect pests or both, according to the US Department of agriculture.
Pro-GM plant scientists also point out that the crops can benefit the environment by enabling farmers to use less-toxic herbicides
and reduce insecticide use. But proponents of labels say that these benefits are temporary, and point to studies showing that weeds
Seed companies can counter this by engineering new crops that are resistant to additional herbicides such as a new soya bean developed by Dow Agrosciences of Indianapolis,
Indiana something that Benbrook argues will actually increase herbicide use. In a poll earlier this month, 69%of Californians supported the proposition,
The site was one of many hotspots that still have especially high concentrations of dioxins after being sprayed with herbicides such as the infamous Agent orange (used to defoliate jungle vegetation) from 1962 to 1971.
which are resistant to the herbicide glyphosate. Dupont violated the patent by making soya beans that mingled the Monsanto trait with its own herbicide-resistant technology, the jury concluded.
Dupont says that it will appeal the verdict. Cancer vaccine The biotech firm behind the first approved cancer vaccine will slash 41%of its workforce, after tepid sales of its Provenge (sipuleucel-T) therapy for some prostate cancers.
The presence of the substance is probably the result of the use of arsenic-based pesticides in cotton fields that were used later for rice farming.
developed by biotech company Monsanto to resist the herbicide glyphosate and approved for animal and human consumption in the European union, United states and other countries.
CRIIGEN bills itself as an"independent nonprofit organization of scientific counter-expertise to study GMOS, pesticides and impacts of pollutants on health and environment
The use of hormones, antibiotics and pesticides, as well as animal diseases and even terrorism pose risks. What steps would you take to ensure the health, safety and productivity of America s food supply?
and minimize pesticides and antibiotics in our food. I set the ambitious goal to increase the number of certified organic operations by 20 percent â oe
I am protecting human health by ensuring that the foods the American public eats will be free from unsafe levels of pesticides by making sure that all new,
and even older pesticides, comply with strict science-based health standards. We are also making sure safer pesticides get to market faster,
so that we can decrease the use of those pesticides that have higher risks of health impacts.
And my administration is taking steps to limit antibiotic use for livestock. This will help ensure that antibiotics are used only address diseases and health problems
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