Last week, the High Court ruled in favour of a judicial review challenging regulations that remove labelling and traceability from so-called ‘precision bred’ organisms. Patrick Holden, CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, and two others stood as co-claimants in the judicial review led by Beyond GM. Patrick has a long history of campaigning against genetically modified organisms (GMOs). He was director of the Soil Association in the late 1990s and early noughties. Michael Meacher was sacked by Tony Blair for his opposition to GM farming.
The International Year of the Woman Farmer is halfway through. Food Tankers are celebrating the role of women in the food system. They are farmers, caregivers, nutrition providers, innovators, pillars of their communities, and so much more. Women’s health is also central to food systems. Global food systems are cultivated by and nourished by women.
On June 11, 2026, the FDA posted on its website the complete Establishment Inspection Report for the Iowa plant that produced ByHeart’s infant-formula base powder. According to the report, organic whole milk powder most likely rode in on C. botulinum spores. The powder was made from fluid organic milk supplied by Organic West Milk, Inc., a California company that pools milk from 55 farms, and dried into powder at a Dairy Farmers of America plant in Fallon, Nevada.
Toe River Health District is investigating an outbreak of food poisoning at El Ranchero in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Four people from Mitchen County and two from Yancey County have been diagnosed with Salmonella and/or Campylobacter bacterial infections after eating at the restaurant on or after May 18, 2026.
Consumers are willing to pay more for eco-friendly products. Two-thirds of Americans expect sustainability to be a baseline feature of business. Ethical labeling systems complicate decision-making, create opportunities for rent-seeking behavior, and raise the costs for both consumption and production.
Untreated urban wastewater from Djibouti's Gulf of Tadjourah in East Africa contained dangerous concentrations of anti-inflammatory medicine like ibuprofen, caffeine, and the antiepileptic drug carbamazepine. The study is one of the few of its kind to be carried out in the East Africa. According to the U.N., just 11% of domestic wastewater is treated in Djib out of the entire country.
For the first time in 60 years, flesh-eating screwworm flies are popping up in farms across the American Southwest. There are a handful of confirmed cases in Texas and New Mexico, but there will be more. The government eradicated the problem by sterilizing the males and releasing them into affected areas.
The Flagstaff Family Food Center has just produced its 2025 Northern Arizona Food Equity Report. In September 2025, I was invited to give a talk on “Anti-Hunger Politics 2025: Planting Seeds for Resilience” at the Center. I wrote the Foreword to the report.
President Trump wants to cut funding for forest and wildfire research at the University of Washington. It's part of a larger reorganization of the U.S. Forest Service. The Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab in Seattle is on a list of research stations that could be closed as part of the reorganization. The chief of the Forest Service defends the plan.
Measles is a major problem in the United States. More than 90% of measles cases this year and last year in the U.S. have been in people who are not vaccinated. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a history of making anti-vaccine remarks and false claims that the MMR vaccine has not been safety tested. Last year, as RFK Jr. touted vitamin A as a treatment for measles, incidence of vitamin A exposures increased.