Agriculture

For a while, the Naga Viper was the hottest pepper in the world. Today, breeding peppers for hotness is an area of military research.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in January proposed a food safety rule that lacked a requirement for food makers to actually test for germs. The requirement had been removed by a shadowy White House office known as OIRA -- where industry can lobby in secret to overturn science-based rules such as this one, meant to prevent one million illnesses per year.

"Environmentalists and beekeepers are calling on the government to ban some of the country's most widely used insect-killing chemicals."

"Congress holds the purse strings, but who holds Congress these days when it comes to farm policy: the meatpackers and Monsanto?"

"Tucked inside a short-term funding measure that Congress approved Thursday is a provision that critics are denouncing as a 'Monsanto Protection Act.'"

"U.S. environmental regulators are failing to protect honey bees and their role in pollinating important food crops, and should immediately suspend use of some toxic insecticides tied to the widespread deaths of the bees, a lawsuit filed on Thursday charges."

"Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt said on Monday that he is placing a hold on Gina McCarthy, President Obama’s pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency, which could delay a full Senate vote on the nominee."

"The American Bird Conservancy is calling for a ban on using one of the globe's most widely used classes of insecticides in seed treatments and for a suspension of all other uses, pending an independent review of its impact on birds and other wildlife."

"The inside story of how the government let one company squash biotech innovation, and dominate an entire industry."

"MACON, Mo. — Five years ago, rural America was giddy for ethanol."