Many farmers using these seeds have even been able to implement a "no-till" system, which offers tremendous environmental benefits by preventing soil erosion, keeping farm water and chemical run-off out of local watersheds and releasing less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

FORBES: Magazine Article

"When the government announces these chemicals are unsafe on food they're ... announcing, in effect, that the farm groups and chemical companies who have said there is no problem were wrong, " Ken Cook of the Environmental Working Group told CNN.

CNN: pesticides

Mr Hostetler, who bought his farm from an in-law who had used pesticides, had to farm the land for three years without chemical inputs before he was passed.

ECONOMIST: Amish farming

The festival raises money for Greenpeace, Oxfam and Water Aid, while Mr Eavis' other green measures include recycling food waste on the working dairy farm, meaning he has not needed to use chemical fertilisers for almost 40 years.

BBC: Glastonbury tickets are 90% sold

The FDA's just-announced import ban on some farm-raised seafood from China, based on its concerns about chemical residues, attracted bad press for Asia's export powerhouse and was more bad news for the worldwide fisheries industry.

FORBES: Magazine Article

If it's cheaper to control methane by fixing a pig farm than by squeezing the last gram of pollution out of a German chemical factory, let the factory pay the pig farmer to control methane.

FORBES: When Pigs Fly

The focus on data is intentional: While other classes teach ag students how to repair combines or learn the proper chemical mixes of common fertilizers, students in agricultural economist Kevin Moore's "Returning to the Farm" class create business plans using financial information from their own family farms.

NPR: Future Heads Of Family Farms Dig Into Financials