Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.

The delicacy, long a feature on the menu of gourmet restaurants across the globe, is made by force-feeding geese to turn their livers to fat, a process long denounced as cruel by animal rights activists and increasingly viewed with unease by authorities in some western cities. In October, New York City, often considered the U.S. fine dining capital, prohibited the sale of foie gras, following similar bans in Chicago and the state of California. In response, French scientists at research company Aviwell near Toulouse have developed an alternative version of the delicacy that uses bacteria - ingested by the goose as a serum - to stimulate a natural, rather than forced, build-up of fat. “It’s the combination of certain bacteria that is capable of triggering in baby geese the natural composition, and completely biological growth, of fat in the liver,” company co-founder Remy Burcelin said. Aviwell raised 600 geese when it launched its project last year, and Fosserie has now become the first foie gras farmer to adopt the technique, which also doubles the birds’ average lifespan from three to six months. “It’s the future, because we see the animal welfare movement getting bigger and bigger,” she said. This next-generation foie gras will be aimed primarily at the U.S. market and Europe, where Britain, Finland and Poland have banned its production. But the French culinary establishment is taking note too. Toulouse chef Simon Carlier, who has been creating dishes with Aviwell’s foie gras for a month, described it as subtle and with an appealing density. It could be served cold or just with little garnishing. “We see a texture, which is less nauseating, let’s say. We can’t compare it to meat - but in some way, it’s easier to eat,” Carlier said. It will also be more expensive. While high-quality traditional foie gras sells for about 300 to 400 euros  ($330-440) per kilo (2.2 lb), Aviwell’s version could fetch 1,000 euros. A naturally fatty goose liver weighs 300-400 grammas while that of a force-fed goose can weigh around 1 kg.
Force-feeding off menu as France trials 'naturally fatty' foie gras.

In January, China approved imports of a new genetically modified soybean variety — Enlist E3 soybeans jointly made by Corteva Agriscience, a division of DowDupont and seed company MS Technologies — that can withstand the herbicide 2,4-D. “This is great news for U.S. soybean growers,” said Joseph Merschman, president of MS Technologies in a February press release. “This announcement clears the way for even more soybean growers to experience the high-yielding elite genetics and exceptional weed control offered by the Enlist E3 soybean system.” DowAgrosciences declined to comment for this story. ___ The nonprofit news outlet Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting provided this article to The Associated Press through a collaboration with Institute for Nonprofit News. ___ The herbicide — 2,4-D — was one of the active ingredients in Agent Orange and has been shown to drift miles away from where it’s applied. The U.S. used Agent Orange during the Vietnam War to eliminate crops and forest covers for enemy troops. The International Agency for Research on Cancer named the weed killer a possible human carcinogen. Studies have also linked 2,4-D to endocrine disruption, disturbing estrogen, androgen and thyroid hormones. Over the past two decades, a growing number of weeds have become resistant to glyphosate, the most popular weed killer in the world, sold as Monsanto’s Roundup. In response, agribusiness companies, like Dow and Monsanto, have introduced new genetically modified varieties of soybeans that can be sprayed with other herbicides that kill glyphosate-resistant weeds. The United States exports $14 billion worth of soybeans to China, or one of every four rows of soybeans, annually, according to the American Soybean Association, an organization of soybean producers. Trade tensions with China and higher import taxes on U.S. soybeans have thwarted imports recently. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has projected that increased 2,4-D use due to the Enlist system would likely increase the amount of the weed killer sprayed between 200 and 600 percent by 2020. Already, it’s one of the most commonly used herbicides in the United States, used in conventional agriculture including corn and is one of the most commonly used home and garden herbicides. In 2016, the USDA estimated that farmers used 44.4 million pounds of 2,4-D on crops across the U.S. “This is just going to absolutely be a disaster,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit organization that works to protect endangered species. The Enlist approval gives farmers looking to manage glyphosate-resistant weeds a new tool at a time when the dominant soybean system — Monsanto’s Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans — has caused widespread issues in the Midwest and South. Those soybeans are genetically engineered to withstand being sprayed by dicamba, a volatile herbicide that has drifted off target and damaged millions of acres of non-resistant soybeans, other crops and natural areas since the Environmental Protection Agency approved new versions of the weed killer for use on soybeans in November 2016. More than 90 percent of soybeans grown in the United States are genetically modified, but there are only three major systems that are commonly used to combat glyphosate-resistant weeds: Monsanto’s Xtend, DowDupont’s Enlist and BASF’s LibertyLink soybeans, which are resistant to glufosinate, another herbicide. Enlist soybeans can also be sprayed with glufosinate. The extent to which 2,4-d-resistant soybeans will be planted is unknown, largely because of the widespread market penetration by dicamba-resistant soybeans. Company officials estimated the product will have at least 10 percent market share by 2020, which would be about 9 million acres in the United States. In two years, dicamba went from being sprayed on zero acres of soybeans to more than 40 million acres. Aaron Hager, an associate professor at the University of Illinois, said many farmers have adopted Monsanto’s Xtend soybeans as a protection measure against drift from dicamba. “It’s going to be difficult for (Enlist) to gain market penetration partially because of how well entrenched dicamba already is,” Hager said. The main question for farmers considering Enlist is whether drift from dicamba will damage Enlist soybeans, said Charles Benbrook, a visiting professor at the University of Newcastle who has spent decades studying pesticides at various institutions. “One of the huge questions is, is there any cross resistance? Will they be any less vulnerable to damage from drifting dicamba and vice versa?” Benbrook said. Benbrook said they may be able to coexist. Though 2,4-D and dicamba are different pesticides, their similarities might allow some cross-resistance in genetically modified soybeans, Benbrook said. Both dicamba and 2,4-D have been used for decades on other crops but at a smaller scale. Both are broadleaf herbicides that kill plants in similar ways, mimicking natural plant hormones called auxins and causing abnormal growth. Like the new version of dicamba, the new 2,4-D strain approved for usage on soybeans is designed to be less volatile than past versions. If there is no cross-resistance, Benbrook projected that Corteva, a division of DowDupont, and Bayer, which owns Monsanto, will likely have to come up with a deal to put the resistant genes in both company’s systems, increasing the price for farmers. Donley said both herbicides, having similar modes of actions and a propensity to drift, will insert an element of doubt on what caused drift damage. States across the Midwest and South have received a record number of pesticide misuse complaints from farmers since dicamba was allowed on soybeans. Already, some scientists have speculated that 2,4-D is causing some of the alleged dicamba damage. “Industry is going to use this to say, ‘how do you know it’s our product?’” Donley said. “It’s going to enable the industry to do what they do best, which is sow doubt in the public.” Environmental groups argue the transition to 2,4-D-resistant soybeans, and the increased spraying that goes along with it, is indicative of the problems with industrial agriculture. Jennifer Sass, senior scientist at the Natural Resource Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, has researched the human health effects of 2,4-D, and said that the herbicide can cause disruptions in the endocrine system. She said that the link to cancer isn’t quite as established. Though 2,4-D is considered a “possible carcinogen,” the research isn’t quite as strong, but that’s because of the difficulties in collecting data, she said. “Those are all data and red flags, but there’s so many reasons to get off this treadmill. Waiting for more confidence in the cancers means waiting for more farmers and pesticide applicators to get cancer, and I don’t think anyone wants to collect our data that way,” Sass said. In some places, some types of glyphosate-resistant weeds, like Palmer amaranth, are already becoming resistant to 2,4-D and dicamba. Bill Freese, a senior scientist at the Center for Food Safety, which is a nonprofit group focused on the environmental effects of food production, said, in addition to human health issues, more spraying will lead to environmental issues, like the killing of pollinators and wild plants, he said. Donley, at the Center for Biological Diversity, has documented those problems with glyphosate and dicamba, especially when it comes to monarch butterflies and milkweed. He said more spraying will lead to more resistance and new herbicides. “It’s a poor answer to a complex situation, and it’s going to be getting worse,” Donley said. “In five-to-10 years, we’re going to be looking for the next herbicide. History tells us what’s going to happen in this case. It’s kind of crazy we’re even considering going here.”
Last year it was dicamba, this year it’s 2,4-D.

The one present Roy Collette wasn’t looking forward to getting for Christmas 1988 was those damned pants. Yet he knew he was in trouble as soon as the flatbed truck bearing a concrete-filled tank off a truck used to deliver ready-mix rolled up. Sure as God made little green apples, those pants had to be in there. And he was going to have to fish them out, else declare his brother-in-law the winner of a rivalry that had then spanned 20 years. Being the sport he is, brother-in-law Larry Kunkel thoughtfully supplied the services of a crane to hoist the concrete-filled tank off the flatbed. What’s this game, you ask? What was the significance of these pants, and why were two grown men going to such efforts year after year to retrieve them, only to send them off again? It all began in 1964 when Larry Kunkel’s mom gave him a pair of moleskin pants. After wearing them a few times, he found they froze stiff in Minnesota winters and thus wouldn’t do. That next Christmas, he wrapped the garment in pretty paper and presented it to his brother-in-law. Brother-in-law Roy Collette discovered he didn’t want them either. He bided his time until the Christmas after, then packaged them up and gave them back to Kunkel. This yearly exchange proceeded amicably until one year Collette twisted the pants tightly and stuffed them into a 3-foot-long, 1-inch wide pipe. And so the game began. Year after year, as the pants were shuffled back and forth, the brothers strove to make unwrapping them more difficult, perhaps in the hope of ending  the tradition. In retaliation for the pipe, Kunkel compressed the pants into a 7-inch square, wrapped them with wire and gave the “bale” to Collette. Not to be outdone, Collette put the pants into a 2-foot-square crate filled with stones, nailed it shut, banded it with steel and gave the trusty trousers back to Kunkel. The brothers agreed to end the caper if the trousers were damaged. But they were as careful as they were clever. As the game evolved, so did the rules. Only “legal and moral” methods of wrapping were permitted. Wrapping expenses were kept to a minimum with only junk parts used. Kunkel next had the pants mounted inside an insulated window that had a 20-year guarantee and shipped them off to Collette. Collette broke the glass, recovered the trousers, stuffed them into a 5-inch coffee can, which he soldered shut. The can was put in a 5-gallon container filled with concrete and reinforcing rods and given to Kunkel the following Christmas. Kunkel installed the pants in a 225-pound homemade steel ashtray made from 8-inch steel casings and etched Collette’s name on the side. Collette had trouble retrieving the treasured trousers, but succeeded without burning them with a cutting torch. Collette found a 600-pound safe and hauled it to Viracon Inc. in Owatonna, where the shipping department decorated it with red and green stripes, put the pants inside and welded the safe shut. The safe was then shipped to Kunkel, who was the plant manager for Viracon’s outlet in Bensenville. The pants next turned up in a drab green, 3-foot cube that once was a 1974 Gremlin. A note attached to the 2,000-pound scrunched car advised Collette that the pants were inside the glove compartment. In 1982 Kunkel faced the problem of retrieving the pants from a tire 8 feet high and 2 feet wide and filled with 6,000 pounds of concrete. On the outside Collette had written, “Have a Goodyear.”  In 1983 the pants came back to Collette in a 17.5-foot red rocket ship filled with concrete and weighing 6 tons. Five feet in diameter, with pipes 6 inches in diameter outside running the length of the ship and a launching pad attached to its bottom, the rocket sported a picture of the pants fluttering atop it. Inside the rocket were 15 concrete-filled canisters, one of which housed the pants. Collette’s revenge for the rocket ship was delivered to Kunkel in the form of a 4-ton Rubik’s Cube in 1985. The cube was made of concrete that had been baked in a kiln and covered with 2,000 board feet of lumber. Kunkel “solved the cube,” and for 1986 gift-giving repackaged the pants into a station wagon filled with 170 steel generators all welded together. Because the pants have to be retrieved undamaged, Collette was faced with carefully taking apart each component. News accounts didn’t record the form in which the pants were passed in 1987, and their 1988 packaging (concrete-filled tank) was mentioned at the beginning of this page. Sadly, 1989’s packaging scheme brought the demise of the much-abused garment. Collette was inspired to encase the pantaloons in 10,000 pounds of jagged glass that he would then deposit in Kunkel’s front yard. “It would have been a great one — really messy,” Kunkel ruefully admitted. The pants were shipped to a friend in Tennessee who managed a glass manufacturing company. While molten glass was being poured over the insulated container that held them, an oversized chunk fractured, transforming the pants into a pile of ashes. The ashes were deposited into a brass urn and delivered to Kunkel along with this epitaph: “Sorry, Old Man Here lies the Pants … An attempt to cast the pants in glass brought about the demise of the pants at last.”

For twenty-five years, two brothers-in-law traded the same pants back and forth between them as a Christmas gift, each time finding more inventive ways to wrap them.