Agriculture

"Imported insects have been deployed as foot soldiers in the fight against invasive bugs and plants that cause billions of dollars in damage each year. But some of those imports are proving to be pests themselves that upset the balance of nature and threaten native species."

"Tops and tails are becoming much more than garbage at Gills Onions, an onion processor in Oxnard, Calif. Today marks the unveiling of the company's onion-powered electrical system, a first-of-its-kind initiative to turn onion waste into energy."

"Fruit and nut orchards in the Central Valley rely on winter chilling hours, but those are in decline, according to a UC Davis study."

The agricultural giant, Syngenta, has petitioned the USDA to grant its new genetically modified corn a non-regulated status. Some experts fear that the strain, meant solely for producing ethanol, could end up in the food supply.

"A highly contagious fungus that destroys tomato plants has quickly spread to nearly every state in the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic, and the weather over the next week may determine whether the outbreak abates or whether tomato crops are ruined."

"Honeybees may not be the first thing that come to mind when you think of Brooklyn. Yet ... a growing number of urbanites who keep bees in cities across the country. Their motivations vary."

Florida has become the first state in the country to set regulations for the purity of honey -- prohibiting chemicals or additives, including corn syrup sweeteners, in products marked as honey.

"California's San Joaquin Valley has lost 60 million acre-feet of groundwater since 1961, according to a new federal study. ... The Central Valley is America's largest farming region; it's also the single-largest zone of groundwater pumping."