Organic produce and $1.50 hot dogs: That’s what Costco does. According to an analysis released Wednesday by financial firm BMO Capital Markets, the free-sample-slinging grocery chain is projected to sell just over $4 billion in organic products this year, edging out $3.6 billion by Whole Foods to take the national lead. To be fair, Costco
Oversight of genetically modified crops in Hawaii remains the state’s kuleana, a federal judge ruled Wednesday when invalidating Hawaii County’s law restricting the use of transgenic plants. The ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren was in line with another decision he made in August overturning Kauai County’s law on pesticides and modified crops. In
The state granted emergency protections to the tricolored blackbird, a once common sight in the Central Valley whose population has plummeted 60 percent in the past six years. The California Fish and Game Commission voted 3-2 to ban killing, harassing or otherwise harming the medium-sized birds for the next 180 days. The state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife will
Terry Stark logged a 25-year military career between his active and reserve duty. Paralleling much of that has been a 40-year career in business and politics, with his final stop as president and chief executive officer of the California Association of Pest Control Advisers (CAPCA). Now, he is stepping down after 10 years, leaving CAPCA
Without the bees to pollinate the trees, there would be no almond crop. The importance of honeybees is now written across a first-ever set of public guidelines for almond growers and beekeepers, released Thursday by the California Almond Board. The guidelines are meant to safeguard bees, whose winter numbers have been plunging. Threats to honeybees
A little less than half of Americans, 45%, actively try to include organic foods in their diets, while 15% actively avoid them. More than a third, 38%, say they "don't think either way" about organic foods. http://www.gallup.com/poll/174524/forty-five-percent-americans-seek-organic-foods.aspx
This is a desalination plant -- a pilot project, started up this summer and doing what no similar plant has been able to do yet on the Valley's west side. It's filtering crop drainage water laden with enough contamination to sterilize the ground or foul a river. Underwritten by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the
A pervasive agricultural insecticide that has been linked to the decline of honeybees is now a near-constant presence in the small and great rivers that flow through Midwestern farm country, according to the first major review of its kind. http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/268650562.html
Arkansas farmer Tommy Young says Southern growers have lived through nearly a decade of torment, fighting a destructive, fast-growing weed that can carry a million seeds, grow as tall as an NBA player and is unfazed by several herbicides. Now that weed — Palmer amaranth — is in five Iowa counties on the state's border,
A bill that would have required labeling on food that contains genetically modified organisms fell short of the votes needed to stay alive in the state Senate on Thursday. "It’s just about information and consumer choice," said Sen. Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa), who introduced SB 1381. However, the vote on the bill was 19-16, two