Food and Farming

Pressure groups question whether Defra has the power to drive reforms in the food sector

In 1962, Rachel Carson's famous exposé of the environmental impacts of the pesticide DDT rocked the chemical industry. Today, Carson's European legacy - the REACH legislation - ought to safeguard public health. But will it?

Find out if your council is about to waste your waste in favour of incinerators with our interactive map

Consumers encouraged to have their say on what is wrong with the current global food system

Food Ethics Council policy director Sean Roberts explains why a debate on fairness in food and farming is long overdue

Suppliers rejoice at calls for an independent Ombudsman but supermarkets already lobbying against the decision

US study finds pesticide link to childhood leukemia and calls for more research

The press are just waiting to stick the knife into organics... but read this new study carefully and you'll realise that this is an infant science

FSA review dismisses health benefits of eating organic but admits to a lack of research on which to base findings

One-in-two chance of fully depleting reservoir storage by 2050, says University of Colorado study.

Growing in popularity in Japan, a new environmental lifestyle choice is helping people grow their own food, reconnect with the land and pursue more fulfilling vocations

MP's report leaves environmentalists facing a dilemma, should they allow GM crop trials or not?

Tracy Worcester’s ‘Pig Business’, a groundbreaking expose of US industrial pig farming conglomerate Smithfield Foods, has met with repeated attempts at censorship by the company’s lawyers. Here, she explains how England’s libel laws have helped stall the film’s general release, and stopped the world learning more about the environmental realities of intensive livestock rearing

The US Food and Drug Administration has said that antibiotics should not be administered to livestock except to prevent or treat disease

Tests on Parkinson's sufferers have revealed a high incidence and levels of the organochloride pesticide beta-HCH, holding out the hope of a blood test to catch the disease early