Tropical Spiderwort Worries and No NEPA Analytics for GE Seeds
From the Ag Information Network, this is your Agribusiness Update.
**An invasive plant has reappeared in the Southeast, and farmers are warned to be on the lookout for tropical spiderwort, a troublesome weed for cotton, peanuts and other crops.
It competes for water and nutrients, and its sprawling, dense growth can smother fields.
North Carolina Ag Commissioner Steve Troxler says tropical spiderwort has been confirmed in an eastern North Carolina cotton field in Craven County, but it’s not clear how it got there.
**The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced it will no longer conduct a National Environmental Policy Act analysis when approving genetically engineered seeds.
APHIS regulates genetically engineered organisms, and those regulations allow them to grant unregulated status to a GE seed if the plant grown from it would not pose a greater
pest risk than a similar organism.
That means it could be easier to bring new GE seeds to
market.
**The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, in partnership with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, is reaching out to farmers, ranchers, and agricultural landowners to gather in-depth information about the conservation practices they use.
Nearly 23,000 operators nationwide will receive the 2025 Conservation Effects Assessment Project survey.
Eligible farmers and landowners may be contacted between November and March 2026 and asked to participate.
