Sara Wyant

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2012 -After almost three years of criticism from GOP leaders for not passing a budget, Senator Kent Conrad, D-N.D., will begin a Senate Budget Committee markup Wednesday of President Obama’s Fiscal Commission Budget Plan, the Bowles-Simpson plan. That mix of budget cuts and ta

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2012 -Aided by favorable weather, spring crops continue to go into the ground at a lightning clip.

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2012 -Several legal affairs “blogs” have been intrigued recently that the U.S. Supreme Court has asked the Justice Department to express its views about an Indiana farmer’s appeal from lower court decisions upholding Monsanto’s patent on glyphosate-resistant biotech soybeans.

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2012 -The Food Safety and Inspection Service is taking its defense right to the heart of new media, disputing critics who say food safety will be compromised by a proposed modernization of its poultry inspection system.

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2012 -USDA’s own National Organic Standards Board is hoping to push Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to side with organic farmers in the debate over coexistence. A six-member NOSB ad hoc committee wants his help making biotech companies and biotech crop farmers responsible

WASHINGTON, April 11, 2012 -Organizers of the effort to persuade FDA to mandate biotech food labels don’t rely only on legal assertions in their 25-page petition. The campaign that collected more than 1 million signatures in support of the petition was calibrated to win public opinion even if its f

WASHINGTON, April 11, 2012 -After more than four years of review, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) denied a petition filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) seeking to cancel use of 2,4-D

WASHINGTON, April 11, 2012 -Some market-watchers were scratching their heads Tuesday after Agriculture Department forecasters made no changes to their U.S. corn balance sheet in the April Supply & Demand report. Private analysts had anticipated as much as a 100 million bushel reduction in project

WASHINGTON, April 11, 2012 -Several large organic food marketers and anti-biotech activists want the Obama Administration to reverse a 20-year policy of opposing mandatory labeling of genetically modified food.

WASHINGTON, April 11, 2012 -Honeybee populations, which faced losses between 30% and 90% of honeybee colonies since 2006, continue to face steady declines while exact causes are yet to be found, said USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) research entomologist, Jay Evans.