A new organization aims to help Arkansas farmer realize opportunities in non-GMO food and agriculture markets. The Natural Soybean and Grain Alliance (NSGA) was established in 2015 after co-founders Kelly Cartwright and Lanny Ashlock helped develop the edamame food soybean industry in Arkansas.

“We’re trying to develop markets for non-GMO soybeans,” says Cartwright, NSGA’s executive director.

NSGA worked with the University of Arkansas’s soybean breeding program and begin licensing non-GMO, value-added soybean seed varieties to sell to the state’s farmers. The soybean varieties include high-protein food- and feed-grade varieties and a high yielding commodity grade variety called DrewSoy 5.0. The soybean is insect and disease resistant and has performed well in university trials in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Missouri.

NSGA’s goal with the three non-GMO soybean varieties is to “add value to the bottom lines of producers,” says Cartwright.

Arkansas is one of the leading state producers of non-GMO soybeans in the U.S. Five to 10 percent of Arkansas’s soybeans are non-GMO, there is significant production of natto and edamame soybeans, and the University of Arkansas is well-known for its non-GMO soybean breeding program.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine sued agricultural giant Monsanto on Monday, alleging the company concealed dangers posed by a toxic chemical compound it manufactured for nearly a half century.

In the suit, filed in the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court in Cincinnati, prosecutors argued that the company should pay for the clean-up of what it says are dozens of rivers, lakes and other water bodies contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.

New research showing organic farming more effectively restores soil carbon and reduces the cause of climate change compared to conventional techniques could sway more shoppers to buy organic – especially as conscious consumerism continues to rise.

Both sides of Roundup cancer lawsuits present experts at hearing on March 5

A Daubert Hearing for the federal Monsanto Roundup litigation is scheduled to begin on Monday, March 5, 2018 at US District Court, Northern District of California in San Francisco. More than 365 Roundup cancer lawsuits against Monsanto have been combined in a federal multidistrict litigation (MDL - In re Roundup Products Liability Litigation - Case Number: 3:16-md-02741-VC) before US District Judge Vince Chhabria. The hearing will begin at 10:00 AM on Monday in Courtroom 8, 19th Floor and will continue at various start times throughout the rest of the week.

Dicamba—a drift-prone herbicide linked to millions of acres of off-target crop damage across in 17 states—destroys mostly everything in its path except the crops that are genetically engineered to resist it. It's so damaging that several states, including Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri have introduced temporary bans on the weedkiller.

There's now another reason to worry about the controversial chemical. It's particularly harmful to milkweed, the only host plant for the iconic and already at-risk monarch buttery.

An Arkansas judge has dismissed a company's challenge of the state's ban on a controversial weed killer, citing a state Supreme Court ruling that has made it more difficult to sue the state.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza on Friday dismissed a lawsuit by Monsanto challenging the state Plant Board's decision to ban dicamba's use between April 16 and Oct. 31. Monsanto was also challenging an earlier rule that specifically targeted its brand of dicamba.

EPA Unlawfully Approved Monsanto’s XtendiMax Weed-Killer, Ignoring Warnings of Rampant Drift, Destroying Crops on Millions of Acres in Devastating 2017 Farm Season With More to Come

Evidence Shows Hundreds of Endangered Species at Risk and Unprotected

WASHINGTON—On Friday, public interest organizations representing farmers and conservationists made their legal case in a federal lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Monsanto Company, challenging EPA’s approval of Monsanto’s new “XtendiMax” pesticide. XtendiMax is Monsanto’s version of dicamba, an old and highly drift-prone weed-killer. EPA’s approval permitted XtendiMax to be sprayed for the first time on growing soybeans and cotton that Monsanto has genetically engineered (GE) to be resistant to dicamba.

The GMO company will pay $150,000 instead of the $4.8 million that had been sought for exposing Kauai workers to pesticides.

Federal environmental regulators have settled claims against a multinational GMO corn grower that exposed dozens of workers on Kauai to a dangerous pesticide in two separate incidents.

Syngenta Hawaii, a local unit of the Swiss giant Syngenta AG, will pay a civil penalty of $150,000 and spend $400,000 on worker protection training sessions for growers under the agreement.

It’s a fraction of the more than $4.8 million the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had announced it was seeking for the 2016 mishap alone, which sent 10 workers to the hospital.

An advocacy group is seeking the attention of the Trump Administration to block Bayer's acquisition of Monsanto. ( Bayer )

Farmers and Families First have launched a television advertisement asking the U.S. Department of Justice and President Donald Trump to stop Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto.

The ad, “Save the Heartland,” highlights what it describes as “negative impacts” of the proposed deal to farmers and middle-class families. The ad is set to air on select Fox News stations in the Washington, D.C., media market.

Farmers and Families First describes itself as a “free market-based policy advocate” created to help American farmers and American families. “Our primary goal is to put ideas into action that promote innovation, lower costs through competition and fairness for farmers and families,” the group’s website states.

The latest from the Trump administration suggests USDA may be ready to once again try and overhaul its regulations for genetically engineered crops.

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GE animals in the cold

Although the administration has shown interest in the GE crop rules, it has yet to signal its intent with regard to FDA's oversight of GE animals.

The Obama administration in January 2017 released draft revisions to FDA's guidance on GE animals. The proposal calls for the agency to continue regulating GE animals as new animal drugs and to expand its oversight – currently FDA considers the presence of an rDNA construct from another species as its trigger for regulation.

But the draft guidance moves far beyond that in a bid to bring in new gene editing technologies, such as CRISPR and TALENs, and to subject any animal with intentionally altered genomes to FDA's new animal drug review and regulations.

The draft guidance drew sweeping criticism from ag and biotech interests, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, BIO, the National Pork Producers Association, the National Milk Producers Federation, North American Meat Institute and NASDA.

Critics worry the proposed revisions will expand the agency's authority and undermine efforts to develop and commercialize biotech innovations that could help producers control diseases, improve food safety, enhance animal welfare and decrease the environmental impacts of animal agriculture.

The vocal opposition, however, has not yet convinced FDA to change course.