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.
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The Latest on Farm Policy
Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) introduced legislation today aimed at reducing pollution that has endangered the Chesapeake Bay watershed for over 25 years. The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act will give state and federal governments more power and funding to clean up pollution from agriculture sources and metropolitan storm run-off.
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California agriculture, which grows roughly 40 percent of America’s food, faces grave threats spurred by climate change, including volatile weather, crippling drought and assaults by growing hordes of pests. It also directly generates about 6 percent of California’s greenhouse gas emissions.
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EWG testifies before the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force that farm run-off in the Mississippi River Basin expands the Gulf of Mexico “dead zone.”
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Agriculture Online
Published August 2, 2005
The Environmental Working Group today released the results of a computer study that looked at federal crop and water subsidies to California's Central Valley Project. The group says some of America's richest agribusinesses are "double dipping" from US taxpayers' pockets at a rate of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
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San Francisco Chronicle, Bill Walker
Published August 18, 2005
Let's say you own a factory that makes titanium widgets. You make more widgets than people need, so the government buys your surplus at a guaranteed profit. That's generous.
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Pioneer Press
Published June 11, 2007
Downtown Minneapolis is a little low on farmland. But it turns out to be full of farmers.
Read MoreThe New York Times, Timothy Egan
Published June 27, 2007
Drive across the empty reaches of the Great Plains, from the lost promise of Valentine, Neb., to the shadowless side roads into Sunray, Tex., and what you see is a land that has lost its purpose. Many of the towns set in this infinity of flat have a listless look, with shuttered main streets and schools given over to the grave.
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Roll Call, Anna Palmer
Published July 7, 2008
Dressed in a dark pinstripe suit with a blue striped shirt and tie, John Boyd Jr. looks the part of Washington insider.
Read MoreWith first compliance deadline in WTO cotton decision looming, Brazil explores a novel trade retaliation: suspension of intellectual property rights for U.S. products.
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September 2006
Pressure is building in Congress for pre-election enactment of the most expensive emergency agricultural disaster aid bill in history.
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Gannett News Service (Detroit Free Press), Doug Abrahms
Published June 4, 2008
Robert Harrold missed the 2000 deadline for filing a benefit discrimination claim against the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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Associated Press (+ over 200 outlets), Sam Hananel and Mary Clare Jalonick
Published June 11, 2007
From Texas billionaires to Washington lobbyists, it's no secret that wealthy people can get federal farm subsidies.
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Mitchell Daily Republic, Seth Tupper
Published September 10, 2008
An environmental watchdog group and a South Dakota outdoorsman slammed Congress Tuesday for proposing legislation that would purportedly slash millions from conservation programs in the recently adopted farm bill.
Read MoreMitchell Daily Republic, Seth Tupper
Published September 12, 2008
Hundreds of South Dakotans already are being turned away from a conservation program that could see a pledged funding increase rescinded by Congress and the president.
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Des Moines Register, Craig Cox
Published November 3, 2008
Two recent reports in the Register make it clear that we need to overhaul our biofuels policy.
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Daily Republic, Seth Tupper
Published September 24, 2008
South Dakota stands to lose $5.268 million of federal funding that was pledged by the farm bill toward a popular conservation program, according to new estimates from an environmental watchdog group.
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How well a rewrite of an important federal law related to environmental uses of water is working was expected to be aired Friday, March 24, at a Central Valley workshop. The Water and Power Subcommittee was to examine the impacts of the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act, which reallocated water from agricultural uses and reserved it for environmental purposes as well as setting up a fund to restore fish and wildlife.
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Capital Press Agricultural Weekly, Chip Power
A handful of the Central Valley’s influential agricultural interests pleaded with a congressional panel to roll back portions of a 14-year-old federal law that elevated environmental uses of water to the same priority as crops. The law in question, known as the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, was amended in 1992 to give environmental uses of water more emphasis.
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The Hill, Jim Snyder
Published June 26, 2009
Excerpt:
The subject of offsets and which federal agency has the responsibility of determining what qualifies has emerged as a problem for some environmental groups, too.
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Des Moines Register, Philip Brasher
Published June 26, 2009
Farmers who already conserve carbon in the soil by not plowing it could qualify for the new credits to keep them from breaking up the land and releasing the carbon into the air.
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