Environment

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Tom Vilsack finally gets his Senate vote to join the Biden administration for a second stint as agriculture secretary, and two other nominees important to farmers and ranchers get hearings this week.

Interest groups have become so hardened in their views about which types of agriculture benefit the environment that the fact that some COVID vaccines have been developed using genetic engineering is unlikely to change minds about the technology’s benefits, an industry advocate says.

Farmers, ranchers and agribusinesses across the U.S. are reeling from extremely cold temperatures and power outages.

Democrats are preparing to pour money into federal conservation programs as a key way to pay farmers to address climate change. Converting marginal croplands to grass through the Conservation Reserve Program is one way to do it, but the question is whether USDA can get landowners interested in it again.

Surging demand for safe, locally-produced fresh vegetables is prompting investors and young entrepreneurs to plant indoor farms that are reaching consumers through some of the nation’s largest retail chains.

Beef producers can achieve feed efficiency gains of about 5% by using Enogen corn, a new lifecycle assessment released by Syngenta Seeds and the University of Arkansas Resiliency Center (UARC) has found.

There were high hopes after the phase one agreement was implemented last February that China would finally overhaul its opaque and sluggish approval process for new agricultural biotech traits, but that optimism has mostly turned to disappointment a year later.

The ag industry is paying more attention to a group of highly persistent chemicals known as PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which have been found in drinking water and groundwater throughout the United States.

The Environmental Protection Agency has extended until March 7 the comment period on its proposed interim registration decision and risk assessments for chlorpyrifos, an insecticide that environmental and farmworker groups have been trying to ban for more than a decade.

The Senate begins its impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump this week even as his successor pushes lawmakers to meet his demands for a $1.9 trillion package of coronavirus relief measures.