Agriculture, Beverages & Food

TORONTO, Ontario, Canada -- Canada's largest food distributor has made a public commitment to stop marketing chemical pesticides by next spring. Loblaw Companies Limited announced today that it will no longer sell chemical pesticides in all of its 440 garden centers across Canada by 2003. Read More

WASHINGTON (March 5, 2002) -- A dangerous killer who targets kids is on the loose, and he's got a new disguise. That's the premise of an animated ''e-movie'' that spoofs Philip Morris' proposed corporate name change to The Altria Group. The tobacco giant's shareholders will vote on the name change at their annual meeting April 25. Billed as ''the movie Philip Morris doesn't want you to see,'' the short animation was released today by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Read More

The International Labor Rights Fund has filed suit in US federal court on behalf of 10,000 Ecuadorian peasant farmers and Amazonian Indians charging DynCorp with torture, infanticide and wrongful death for its role in the aerial spraying of highly toxic pesticides in the Amazonian jungle, along the border of Ecuador and Colombia. Read More

Scott Good, 42, is the target of a federal lawsuit he fears could break him financially. It is one of about two dozen pending suits, not to mention hundreds of complaints, pursued by Monsanto about alleged misuse of its genetically altered cotton, canola, corn and soybean seeds. Read More

Tobacco companies are jeopardizing the health of Third World tobacco farmers who are required to use dangerous pesticides under exclusive contracts that hook them to company credits, according to a report released Monday by a major development group. Read More

The McDonald's hamburger chain that occupies villages throughout modern-day France has commandeered a Asterix, a national cartoon character, to promote its food as part of a marketing campaign launched yesterday that pushes aside the venerable clown, Ronald McDonald. Read More

Confidential documents obtained by Friends of the Earth Europe underline American opposition to European Union plans for compulsory tracing and labeling rules for all food and animal feed containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) above a certain threshold. Read More

In the final hectic days before Congress adjourns for the year, lobbyists are swarming around the Capitol, trying to adorn a bill on bioterrorism with all sorts of special-interest provisions. Read More

Scientists have found DNA from genetically modified crops in wild maize growing on remote mountains in Mexico. Read More

BOSTON (November 14, 2001) -- With the next round of negotiations for the world's first public health treaty set to begin next week in Geneva, the European Union position on key issues in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is being roundly criticized by NGOs around the world. Read More