The Issue
Farm Policy
EWG works hard for a farm policy that does more to support family farmers, protect the environment, encourage healthy diets and ensure better access to healthy food – all while supporting working families.
Sign Up
The Latest on Farm Policy
America's farmland is worth protecting. Farmers can do more than producing food and fiber. They can also produce clean air, clean water, and abundant habitat for wildlife.
Read More
America's farmland is worth protecting. Farmers can do more than producing food and fiber. They can also produce clean air, clean water, and abundant habitat for wildlife.
Read MoreThanks to the leadership of Senators Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Senate today (May 23) passed a truly historic
Read More
Since it was first authorized in the 1996 farm bill, USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program has grown into the single most important federal program that helps farmers and ranchers protect farmland and the environment as they grow America
Read MoreThere’s a lot of nonsense being circulated as the full Senate debates the farm bill and members finally bring up amendments to make common sense reforms to the federal crop insurance program.
Read MoreWASHINGTON -- EWG’s 2013 Farm Subsidy Database, launched today, documents that free-spending federal crop insurance subsidies are badly in need of reform.
Read More
Arizona Sen. John McCain ignited an historic debate over crop insurance yesterday when he offered an amendment to the farm bill that would end insurance subsidies to tobacco farmers.
Read MoreOpponents of crop insurance reform contend that common-sense reform designed to level the playing field for family farmers and protect taxpayers and the environment will “weaken” the farm safety net.
Read MoreA day after the Senate Agriculture committee passed its version of the 2013 farm bill, the House committee did the same.
Read More
The reality is that the nation’s primary prairie and wetlands protection program – the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) – was not designed to meet the environmental challenges being created by record prices for farm commodities. Because the majority of the land in the program is taken out of agricultural production under 10- and 15-year rental agreements with the owners, cropland that had been “restored” with grasses and trees is increasingly being plowed under to grow crops again as soon as these agreements expire. As a result, the benefits of taxpayers’ investment in these short-term agreements have proved to be fleeting.
Read More
Dick and Linda Grotberg began their transition to sustainable farming largely by accident.
Read MoreSix former chiefs of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service today (May 7) urged the leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees to once again require farmers to adopt basic conservation practices in exchange for crop insurance su
Read MoreEnvironmental Working Group (EWG) today launched the Worth Protecting social media and advocacy campaign to underscore the need for federal farm bill reforms that protect public health and the environment and support future generations of family farmers.
Read MoreFederally subsidized crop insurance is now the most expensive program supporting farm income, so it’s no surprise that it will be at the center of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s deliberations on the 2013 farm bill, starting later this month. And as it happens, last year’s epic drought, which decimated crops across a wide swath of America, afforded a unique opportunity to assess the effectiveness of a program whose costs have ballooned to $9 billion a year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Read MorePages
