According to a Bayer June 4 statement,11 Monsanto's product line will keep their original brand names in the Bayer portfolio, but the Monsanto name is being retired. The merged entity will retain the Bayer name. Cultural integration is predicted to be a challenge for the new, now much larger Bayer. Bayer also has a shadowy past of its own that is in need of rehabilitation. (Tuesday June 19th, 2018 — Organic Consumers - Finland, Minnesota USA)

A 24-year-old experimental school in Taipei exemplifies Taiwan's role as a leading advocate of alternative education. (Tuesday June 19th, 2018 — The News Lens International - )

Regeneration Guatemala's mission is to rebuild the deteriorated social, ecological and economic systems in Guatemala by transforming the agricultural landscape through regenerative agriculture and land-use practices, with a focus on Poultry-Centered Regenerative system design. (Monday June 18th, 2018 — RegenerationInternation online - )

More than a year after the Trump administration controversially overturned a decision to ban pesticides containing chlorpyrifos, the state of Hawaii has taken the matter into its own hands. The Aloha State has passed a law barring the use of such chemicals, which have been linked to adverse side effects in humans, including debiltating neurological and developmental maladies. (Saturday June 16th, 2018 — ThinkProgress online -- USA)

They initially came up with the extraordinary idea to create a 10-mile-wide (or 16-kilometer-wide) barrier of vegetation stretching from coast to coast. ... The impact should ultimately transcend just those measured in acres (or hectares). As the Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative has evolved into a mosaic of land initiatives under the larger vision, the hope is to provide the next generation with fertile land and access to a flourishing economy in the region. (Tuesday June 5th, 2018 — Good Brand Studio for Good News)

In recent years, integrative medical-research clinics have been springing up all around the country, 42 of them at major academic medical institutions including Harvard, Yale, Duke, the University of California at San Francisco, and the Mayo Clinic. (Tuesday June 5th, 2018 — UTNE - Ogden Publications Topeka, Kansas USA)

"What personalization means to the Gates Foundation is a specific - it's software," said Audrey Watters, author of a forthcoming book on the history of educational technology. She pointed out that Montessori schools and Waldorf schools have been doing their own version of personalized learning for 100 years, one that emphasizes free play and imagination. But "the Gates Foundation hasn't spent $10 billion funding Waldorf schools," Watters said. "They've been funding a particular vision of what personalization means. And it's one that is very wrapped up in the idea that the way that one personalizes education is through software that both mines student data and algorithmically presents students with the concept they need to learn." (Tuesday June 5th, 2018 — The Hechinger Report - New York, New York USA)

Vinifying wine in clay is far from a new practice. With a history that dates back more than 6,000 years and origins in the Caucasus region, its lineage is longer and deeper than that of steel and barrique. While the last century saw the use of clay diminish drastically, a return to wine's roots is afoot. ... "Rudolf Steiner [an Austrian philosopher and founder of biodynamics] often speaks on clay as an element between two polarities, one that harmonizes extremes, gives and takes, returns purity and [delivers] a clear message," she says. (Wednesday May 30th, 2018 — Wine Enthusiast Magazine )

Buying and eating apples seems a pretty healthy thing to do. But a new study has found that every 1 kilo (2.2 pounds) of conventionally grown apples creates health effects costing 21 cents due to the effects of pesticides and fungicides, resulting in sick leave and eventually shorter life expectancies. (Sunday May 27th, 2018 — HuffPost - USA)

The market owner won't sell octopus products after playing hide-and-seek with a friendly cephalopod. (Friday May 25th, 2018 — HuffPost - USA)

The U.S. Justice Department this month is expected to approve a merger of two huge corporations ― St. Louis-based seed company Monsanto and German crop-chemical conglomerate Bayer ― and the consequences could be enormous. (Friday May 25th, 2018 — HuffPost - USA)

n the past, lawsuits have attempted to establish that RoundUp causes cancer, which Johnson, a groundskeeper, is also doing but he's added a ground-breaking allegation to his lawsuit: he claims that Monsanto has been involved in a lengthy coverup to showcase its glyphosate-containing products are safe when they may not actually be. So, beginning on June 18 Monsanto faces allegations that it has spent decades hiding information linking its products to cancer. (Thursday May 24th, 2018 — Care2.com - USA)

Demeter, the ancient Greek goddess of grain and fertility, is the name of a modern international organization that since 1928 has fostered biodynamic agricultural practices that recognize and nurture the living ecosphere of soils, plants and animals. (Wednesday May 23rd, 2018 — Mail Tribune - Medford, Oregon USA)

This is Camp Altiplano, where volunteers are using simple practices such as creating ponds and loosening hard earth to return the soil to health. ... In focusing on soil, Camp Altiplano's ultimate goal is to learn how to bring degraded land back to life. If current rates of global soil degradation continue, it’s estimated we may only have 60 years of farming left. What's more, restoring degraded soil worldwide has the potential to remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, meaning soils can play an important role in climate change mitigation. (Thursday May 17th, 2018 — HuffPost - USA)

Reports from China, India, Southeast Asia and Africa suggest that average yield increases of 20 to 50 percent are regularly being achieved by farmers adopting the "system of rice intensification" (SRI), which aims to stimulate the root system of plants rather than trying to increase yields in the conventional way by using improved seeds and synthetic fertilizers. ... SRI, in contrast, involves the careful spacing of fewer but younger plants, keeping the topsoil around the plants well-aerated by weeding, using manure and avoiding flooding. (Tuesday May 15th, 2018 — HuffPost - USA)

Talk to winegrowers who have adopted biodynamic farming techniques in their vineyards and they'll often tell you how their wines now express a clearer taste of terroir in the glass. By focusing on a holistic approach to the health of the soil and the plants, they argue, the biodynamic system of organic farming – first outlined by Rudolf Steiner in a series of lectures to farmers in the 1920s - helps the vines produce grapes that have a more distinct flavour of where they're grown. (Wednesday May 9th, 2018 — The Australian Financial Review )

Winchester artist Ruth Lieberherr ... Her work is influenced by philosopher Rudolf Steiner. He is the creator of anthroposophy and founder of Waldorf education. According to the Waldorf education website, "at the heart of anthroposophy is the belief that humanity has the wisdom to transform itself and the world, through one's own spiritual development." (Thursday May 3rd, 2018 — Wicked Local - Winchester, Virginia USA)

European nations will not allow three popular neonicotinoids, clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, to be sprayed on fields. Although the EU previously had a partial ban on using these particular pesticides on flowering plants that are particularly attractive to bees, that step was deemed insufficient given the continued harm they did to the bee population. (Saturday April 28th, 2018 — Care2.com - USA)

It helps water find a rhythm between a Main Street storm drain and the riverbank. It is both a small and a large gesture. A statement. A wish for a troubled river. ... Flowforms, as they are called, purify and aerate water by mimicking its natural and most harmonious flow, said Rachel Fletcher, founder and director of the Housatonic River Walk, a National Recreation Trail, which installed these in 1994. (Tuesday April 24th, 2018 — Berkshire Eagle - Great Barrington, Massachusetts USA)

With the increasing spotlight on conservation around the world, more vineyards are committed to sustainability and becoming biodynamic now than ever before, adhering to the principles of the philosopher Rudolf Steiner. He believed that the position of the moon and stars within specific constellations and times of year influenced the growth of the vines, roots, flowers, and fruit. Many such vineyards go the extra mile, by resorting to "dry-farming" principles, plowing the soil with livestock and hand-picking the grapes. Herewith, AD lists the most beautiful biodynamic vineyards around the world: (Sunday April 22nd, 2018 — Architectural Digest )