If you’ve ever wished that one day there would be a place where you could grab a bacon and cheese pileup with no veggies, smashed between slabs of fried chicken instead of buns, here’s good news.

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.

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.

Since February, the National Black Farmers Association has been rallying support to persuade Congress to distribute the $1.15 billion promised to black farmers in the 1999 Pigford settlement, which resolved a lawsuit charging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) with decades of discriminatory practices. Unfortunately, a looming March 31 deadline for appropriating the funds could foil the effort to bring closure at last to thousands of farmers and their families.

Good, healthy food was on the menu -- and on the agenda -- this month (March 3) when EWG staff and key supporters gathered in San Francisco for a sumptuous meal and lively discussion at EWG’s 2010 Earth Dinner. The goal of the Earth Dinner was to introduce the audience of environmental stalwarts to the increasing convergence of EWG's two major fields of work -- how common toxic chemicals find their way into the bodies of America's children and the impact of modern agriculture on the environment and human health.

Proposed budget cuts threaten half a billion dollars in federal grants to help U.S. farmers protect the environment, but an alliance of California agriculture, labor, and conservation groups are fighting to keep the programs alive.

First, the heavily subsidized commodity crop growers complained when the Department of Agriculture dared to send out encouraging messages about local and organic farming. Next, a coalition of Big Ag groups, including USA Rice and the Texas and Minnesota Corn Growers Associations, fired another salvo at organics, this time in an online broadside this week (March 1) that missed the mark by enough to become a self-inflicted wound.

Today (Feb 15th) may be the President's Day holiday, but for the president of the National Black Farmer's Association (NBFA) it's the culmination of a remarkable push to bring justice to thousands of black farmers and their families.

Trimming profit-ensuring farm subsidies to the largest growers of cotton, corn and rice continues to be a hot topic since president Obama announced his intentions to reform the wasteful programs. First in our roundup is this piece in the San Jose Mercury News where  subsidy recipient John Vidovich is holding onto the hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer assistance he so despises.