The Latest from AgMag

Clearly, the only criterion Forbes magazine uses when determining which U.S. corporation wins its yearly “Company of the Year” title must be profit. That’s the only way to explain how a company as notorious as Monsanto could possibly get the nod for 2009 from the mag, which proclaims itself “The Capitalist Tool.”

Key Issues: 

Toxics

Pesticides

Farming

Environment

Food

Chemicals in Food

The American Farm Bureau convention irresponsibly passed a resolution opposing climate change legislation on January 12th. Laughably, at the same time they threw down the gauntlet on climate legislation, the Farm Bureau also created a Budget Deficit Reduction Task Force.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Environment

If your family got its water from your own well (and a lot of people do), what would you say to someone who wanted to pump a whole grab-bag of chemicals into the ground nearby, including some that are known to be toxic or to cause cancer? Just guessing here, but I suspect you’d send him on his way with a few choice words.

Key Issues: 

Toxics

Fracking

Tap Water

Last summer, EWG President Ken Cook dropped in on the Kickapoo Country Fair held by Organic Valley - a farmer-owned cooperative of more than 1,300 organic family farmers nationwide – in LaFarge, Wisc.  There he was interviewed by Dorothee Royal-Hedinger, the host, web video producer and blogger for OrganicNation.TV website.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Environment

Food

Local & Sustainable

The Center For America Progress's Eric Alterman and Mickey Ehrlich have written an interesting piece on recent legislation and the impact that campaign contributions from well-funded special interests have had on the final shape of critical bills.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

It's tough to rattle a scientist's cage. But Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau, has found a way by scoffing repeatedly at the biblical calamities that climate change is predicted to bring down on agriculture. Stallman denies that climate change even exists and pounds the denier drum daily to the members of America's largest agriculture organization.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Environment

Could Byron Dorgan, the U.S. senator from North Dakota who just announced that he won't run again, be the next target for Growth Energy's New York Yankees-style spending spree for top DC talent?

Key Issues: 

Energy

Biofuels

A flurry of blog postings in the last two days have pointed out that the conservative Minnesota congresswoman, who has regularly attacked President Obama’s health care and foreclosure relief proposals as “socialism,” takes full advantage of taxpayer dollars through the dysfunctional federal farm subsidy program – to the tune of $259,332 paid to a family farm between 1995 and 2008.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

In an unprecedented analysis of 20 million drinking water quality tests performed by water utilities between 2004 and 2009, EWG found that water suppliers had detected a total of 316 contaminants in water delivered to the public. The pollutants detected included 202 chemicals that have no mandatory safety standards for tap water, which were found in water supplied to approximately 132 million people in 9,454 communities across the country. These unregulated chemicals include the weed killer metolachlor.

Key Issues: 

Water

Tap Water