The Latest from AgMag

Climate Change activists should be concerned about proposed cuts to farm bill conservation programs, which would be the carbon emissions equivalent of adding 2 million cars a year to America’s roads. As a possible 2012 farm bill looms, the ag committee leaders and their industrial agriculture lobby remoras are sorting through the smoking ruins of the 2011 secret farm bill process.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Farm Policy

Environment

For the third consecutive year, the Environmental Protection Agency has drastically reduced cellulosic biofuel mandates, citing economic and technological hurdles. Even though industry officials consistently assure lawmakers and taxpayers that commercial production is “just around the corner,” EPA yesterday reduced the 2012 cellulosic mandate by ninety eight percent.

Key Issues: 

Energy

Biofuels

Farming

Gulf state taxpayers help fund the creation of agriculture pollution they ultimately deal with. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has launched a new initiative to pay Gulf Coast farm businesses in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida $50 million over the next three years to help reduce the pollution that runs off their farm fields into the public’s waters.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Farm Policy

Environment

Making sense of the complex farm bill is the first step in bringing much-needed change to America’s badly broken food and farm system.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Farm Policy

Food

Local & Sustainable

With deliberations on the 2012 farm bill due to begin in January, EWG looks at how the industrial agriculture lobby dominates the hearing process, leaving little room for good food reformers.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Farm Policy

The Congressional Super Committee was created to make tough budget choices, but the leaders of the Ag Committees appear to be going in the opposite direction with more lavish subsidy giveaways to mega farms. EWG has new details about the secret farm bill that have started leaking out today.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Farm Policy

If you wanted an object lesson in how broken food politics are in America, you couldn't do better than to read how farm lobbyists, teamed up with big food companies and malleable friends in both parties in the House and Senate, tore up USDA's fledgling, modest school lunch reforms as they wrote this year's agriculture spending bill.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Food

Healthy Eating

The leaders of Congress' Agriculture Committees continue to deliberate the next farm bill in secret, and the conventional wisdom now is that direct payments may see cuts or be entirely banished in the final product. We hope so.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

A secret farm bill will leave out healthy food and hurt California. Nearly 70 environmental, public health, nutrition, food and farm groups – including EWG – are calling on California’s congressional delegation to take a stand in the current debate over food and agriculture policy.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Farm Policy

Food

Local & Sustainable