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.

Environmental Working Group Senior Analyst Kari Hamerschlag used EWG's new farm subsidy database to take a deep, critical look at the subsidy system in California. She found (pdf) that although cotton and rice constitute a tiny portion of California’s nation-leading farm production, those two crops – rather than the state’s vast harvest of fruits and vegetables – continue to get the lion’s share of federal farm subsidies in the state.

It's too early to tell what the Tea Party movement's impact will be on the November elections, but there's no doubt that their noisy anti-big government message has barged into the nation's political conversation in a big way. So don't you think it's odd that Tea Party candidates have had so little to say about one area of wasteful spending that all limited government advocates should be able to agree on -- the farm subsidy programs administered by the US Department of Agriculture?

In the three months since assuming the chairmanship of the Chesapeake Executive Council, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson has directed several encouraging new initiatives.

The surest way to ensure that second-generation advanced biofuels remain in their test tubes and never see the spark of an engine is to pass a piece of legislation recently introduced (Feb. 14) by Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa).

This week (April 6), US officials struck a deal aimed at staving off Brazilian trade retaliation for subsidies paid to American cotton growers. Brazil had won the right  to impose tariffs and lift patent protections on $829 million in U.S. goods in a 2009 World Trade Organization ruling that the cotton subsidies and export credit guarantees violated global trade rules.

The Environmental Working Group will join other watchdog groups in monitoring the San Francisco Public Utility Commission’s (SFPUC) controversial management of sewage sludge. EWG President Ken Cook said that advocacy organizations have been right to oppose the distribution of composted sewage sludge from the SFPUC for use on Bay Area gardens and farmland.

David DeGennaro, previously Senior Legislative Assistant to Congressman Ron Kind (D-WI), is joining the Environmental Working Group (EWG) as a legislative and policy analyst in the organization’s Washington DC office. He joins the EWG farm bill team the week of March 29, 2010.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark) plans to mark up her Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 this week (March 24). The legislation would reauthorize child nutrition programs and increase their funding by $4.5 billion over 10 years.