The Issue
Environment
Farms and ranches cover more than half of all land in the United States. EWG works to keep the land productive and to protect soil, water and wildlife.
Sign Up
The Latest on Environment
I’m a vegetarian. But my husband’s not. And – go figure – my kids aren’t either. Which is exactly why I care about the meat I buy.
Read More
The Environmental Working Group today released its groundbreaking Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change and Health, a powerful, multi-featured tool that allows both consumers and experts to understand easily how food choices affect both their environmental footprint and their health.
Read MoreIt’s a huge and comprehensive piece of legislation that drives federal spending and policies on agriculture, nutrition and conservation programs. In just one year – 2010 – farm bill programs spent $96.3 billion. How those dollars are used makes a big difference to our health and the environment.
Read More
The Environmental Working Group knows that you care about the affordability and availability of healthy food and clean drinking water. So we wanted to make sure you know as much as you can about the massive piece of legislation that guides federal agriculture policy.
Read More
Tuesday’s (May 31) votes by the House Appropriations Committee represented one such baby step. For the first time in years, the committee in charge of setting federal spending levels decided that government payments to absentee land owners and wealthy farm operations should be trimmed to reflect today’s budget realities. It signaled that extravagant or irrational farm subsidies might finally have to give way.
Read MoreOne year ago, President Obama signed an executive order directing the federal government to take the lead in the faltering effort to control the pollution fouling Chesapeake Bay. The President said he would do everything he can to protect the Bay and wildlife habitats in the region, and the public took heart that the Bay’s long decline might finally be reversed.
Read More
On Friday (May 13), Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook blew the whistle on the agri-chemical lobby's months-long effort to get the government to put the industry's spin on the upcoming annual report on pesticide residues on fresh produce.
Read More
For roughly two decades, the US Department of Agriculture has tested various fruits and vegetables for pesticide residues, usually making its findings available to the public in January. More than four months into the year, results for USDA’s 2010 tests have yet to be released.
Read MoreFood prices and food scarcity are quickly becoming the hidden driver in world politics, says pioneering environmental analyst Lester Brown, sparking political upheaval in the Middle East and threatening the stability of other developing countries.
Read MoreEvery year, taxpayers send billions to farm businesses to cover the cost of implementing conservation practices that help keep the soil on the land and limit the runoff of dirt and agricultural chemicals from their fields into rivers and streams.
Read MoreLeading lawn care products maker Scotts Miracle-Gro brought smiles to the faces of many Chesapeake Bay advocates last month with its announcement that it will eliminate phosphorus from its fertilizers. By 2012, all Scotts lawn maintenance fertilizers sold in the United States will be free of phosphorus, a nutrient turned persistent pollutant that is crippling the bay’s ecosystem. Scott said its phosphorus-free lawn food will yield the same green lawns at the same cost as current products.
Read MoreData based on tracking erosion after every storm over a period of years shows that Iowa farms are losing precious topsoil up to 12 times faster than government estimates, a disturbing discovery detailed in a new report by the Environmental Working Group. The report, titled Losing Ground, is based on research by scientists at Iowa State University whose methods provide an unprecedented degree of precision in monitoring soil erosion.
Read MoreBad federal policy and intensifying storms are washing away the rich dark soils in the Midwest that made this country an agricultural powerhouse and that remain the essential foundation of a healthy and sustainable food system in the future.
Read MoreWhen Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) spoke to the Organic Trade Association's Washington Policy Conference the other day, her talk had two parts: the part where she left the distinct impression that she had no idea whom she was talking to, and the part where it seemed she didn't care.
Read MoreCoalitions often help bring about real change for the public good. Not this one though.
Read MoreBad federal policy and intensifying storms are washing away the rich dark soils in the Midwest that made this country an agricultural powerhouse and that remain the essential foundation of a healthy and sustainable food system in the future.
Read MoreThree leading environmental groups say they’re hauling Chicago’s sewer system and the Environmental Protection Agency into court over the pollution that pours out of the city, down the Mississippi and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico, helping to grow the perennial “Dead Zone.”
Read MoreAttending the TEDx Manhattan event on the future of food and farming was a day-long drink from a fire hose of cutting-edge ideas, sobering realities and sincere enthusiasm about how America can eat better and farm more sustainably.
Read MoreThe Obama administration’s proposed 2012 federal budget released today targets several wasteful agriculture programs, including cutting $4.25 billion over 10 years from subsidies to large farm operations, wealthy landowners and the crop insurance program.
Read MoreThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today proposed to grant three environmental groups’ petition to end the use of sulfuryl fluoride, an insecticide and food fumigant manufactured by Dow AgroSciences.
Read MorePages
