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Opponents of mandatory labeling for foods made with genetically modified organisms spent more than $27 million in the first six months of this year on GMO-related lobbying, roughly three times their spending in all of 2013, according to an analysis released Wednesday. The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and major food makers such as Coca-Cola Co and PepsiCo Inc and top biotech seed makers Monsanto Co and DuPont were among heavy spenders on GMO labeling-related lobbying, among other food issues, according to a report issued by the Environmental Working Group.

DuPont will pay a fine of $1.275 million and spend an estimated $2.3 million more to settle claims by U.S. officials that the global chemical conglomerate failed to prevent toxic releases of hazardous substances in West Virginia that killed at least one man, environmental regulators said on Wednesday. E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co reached the settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Justice in a case about eight alleged releases of harmful levels of hazardous substances between May 2006 and January 2010 from a DuPont facility in Belle, West Virginia, the EPA said.

A group of global biotech crop companies won a court victory on Monday that blocks enactment of a law passed last year limiting the planting of biotech crops and use of pesticides on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren of the U.S. District Court in Hawaii ruled that the law passed in November by local leaders on the island was invalid because it was pre-empted by Hawaii state law.

U.S. regulators on Tuesday said they are leaning toward approval of a new line of herbicide-tolerant crops developed by Monsanto Co even though they could increase problematic weed resistance for farmers. Under the draft "environmental impact statement" (EIS) by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the agency said its analysis shows the new genetically modified cotton and soybean plants should be approved.

Kansas voters will get to weigh in Tuesday on a right-wing food fight as part of a Congressional House race, while in neighboring Missouri the son of former Attorney General John Ashcroft seeks to follow in his father's footsteps. In all, four states are holding primary elections Tuesday, with Kansas, Missouri, Michigan and Washington voters taking to the polls. One Kansas race drawing national attention is a contest for the state's 4th District congressional seat between incumbent Republican Mike Pompeo and challenger Todd Tiahrt.

One year after the launch of a social media effort to allay consumers' concerns about the safety of foods made from genetically modified crops, U.S. companies that develop GMOs have further committed to a multimillion-dollar campaign to defeat attempts to add GMO labels to such foods. "We are not going to sit down for that (labeling)," Cathleen Enright, spokeswoman for the effort, said in an interview. "We want people to know how their food is grown ... we support a right to know. It is the mechanism that we can't abide."

A class of insecticides popular with corn and soybean farmers in the U.S. Midwest but feared as a factor in the decline of U.S. honey bee colonies and other crop pollinators, has been found to be widespread through rivers and streams in Iowa, according to a government study released on Thursday. The study, released by the U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, marks the first broad-scale investigation of multiple neonicotinoid insecticides in waterways in the Midwestern U.S., and is one of the first conducted within the entire United States, according to the government scientists.

Farmers in important crop-growing states should consider the environmentally unfriendly practice of deeply tilling fields to fight a growing problem with invasive "superweeds" that resist herbicides and choke crop yields, agricultural experts said this week. Resistance to glyphosate, the main ingredient in widely used Roundup herbicide, has reached the point that row crop farmers in the Midwest are struggling to contain an array of weeds, agronomists say.

California regulators violated the law by approving expanded use of pesticides that have been shown to hurt honeybees needed for pollinating key American crops, according to a lawsuit filed against the state by environmental groups on Tuesday. The lawsuit seeks an injunction prohibiting the state Department of Pesticide Regulation from approving any new neonicotinoid products or new uses of those products unless it completes a required re-evaulations of the pesticides.

A Chinese woman has been arrested and charged with trying to steal patented U.S. seed technology as part of a plot to smuggle types of specialized corn from farm fields in the U.S. Midwest for use in China, authorities said on Wednesday. The woman, Mo Yun, is married to the founder and chairman of a Chinese conglomerate that runs a corn seed subsidiary. She and her brother, Mo Hailong, worked together and with others to steal the valuable corn seed from Iowa and Illinois, according to law enforcement officials. Mo Hailong was indicted and arrested in December.