The Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF), a California trade association, wants you to have less information about pesticide residues on the fruits and vegetables you buy. That’s not too surprising; since the Alliance represents more than 50 large produce growers and marketers and the suppliers who sell them pesticides and fertilizer.

It’s now a done deal. After Congress in July rebuffed several attempts by Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) to win funding for an agriculture disaster aid package that would send generous checks to large Arkansas farms for minimal losses, the White House quickly offered to finance the payments administratively.

Discussions in Congress on reforming America's broken food and farm policy in the next farm bill have already begun. Lots of voices are chiming in from the pro-food and sustainable agriculture circles on ideas for change. With the proliferation of food knowledge being spread by television and celebrity chefs, and the engagement of the First Lady on food and nutrition issues.

The conflagration that embroiled the US Department of Agriculture last week (July 19) over the knee-jerk dismissal of an African American official who was falsely accused of reverse discrimination is only the latest travesty at an agency that has a notorious record on racial issues.

The Environmental Working Group has worked hard to track the billions lavished on the wealthiest and largest farm operations in the country, in the hope that releasing the information would spur public demand for a sane and sensible agriculture policy.

EWG’s letter warns of phosphorous pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.

Perdue Chicken Chairman Jim Perdue is retaliating against environmentalists -- and their lawyers -- who filed filed suit against the poultry giant and one of its contract chicken farms on March 2 for violations of the Clean Water Act. From The Washington Post: In Maryland, messing with Big Chicken can bring big trouble. The latest case study is playing out in Annapolis, where the state Senate wants to impose greater scrutiny on the University of Maryland's environmental law clinic.

You hear plenty of talk about the ballooning federal deficit created by tax cuts, two wars and the effort to dig out of the economic meltdown, but precious little about the funding gap that’s hollowing out federal programs designed to protect America’s soil and water.

The third in AgMag’s series of looks at the Obama budget is a hopeful one. First we examined attempts by the Administration to limit the taxpayer-funded payments that ensure profits for the wealthiest farm operations. That idea was instantly stonewalled by Minnesota’s powerful Congressional delegation, which has the Minneapolis City Pages fuming.