The food we produce and the way we produce it has profound effects—good or bad—on our health, quality of life and the environment. On these pages you will learn what EWG is doing to protect your health and environment while ensuring a sustainable future for America’s working farms and ranches.
Farmers can do more than producing food and fiber. They can also produce clean air, clean water, and abundant habitat for wildlife. But farm policies are doing too little to reward good stewardship and too much to underwrite unsustainable crop and animal production by the largest and most successful farm businesses.
EWG’s renowned farm subsidy database reveals that taxpayer support goes mostly to large, profitable operations, not to sustainable family farms that truly need the help. We’re working to change a badly broken system.
Food should be good for you. But some foods aren’t. Pesticides are sprayed on millions of acres every year and some of them end up on your food. Our broken farm subsidy system encourages over production of the wrong food. EWG is pushing for better policy and more sustainable ways of farming that produce healthy food in a healthy environment.
Nothing is more important to your health and quality of life than safe drinking water and clean streams and lakes. Across the country, pollution from farms is one of the primary reasons water is no longer clean or safe. Agriculture is the leading source of pollution of rivers and streams surveyed by U.S. government experts, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Thankfully, if we make simple changes in the way we farm, we can take a big step toward clean water.
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EWG keeps you up to date with analysis of the latest news, interviews with experts and more.
Hurricane Michael is rapidly advancing toward Florida, raising concerns that the storm could worsen and spread the red tide that is plaguing a 145-mile stretch of the state’s Gulf Coast. Although scientists speculate what impact Michael will have on the red tide, there is no question that this year will go down as one of the worst for outbreaks of potentially toxic algae in the Sunshine State.
Outbreaks of potentially toxic algae in U.S. lakes, rivers and other waterways rose by an additional 40 percent this year compared to 2017, according to EWG’s tracking of news reports.
EWG found that 245 people who have received taxpayer-funded farm subsidies or disaster payments for 32 straight years currently reside in the nation's 50 largest cities, according to an analysis of Department of Agriculture data.
Outbreaks of potentially toxic algae in U.S. lakes, rivers, streams and even the Gulf of Mexico continue to rise sharply this summer, according to EWG’s ongoing tracking of algae outbreaks.
A 52-story skyscraper on Park Avenue in New York City is the world headquarters for JPMorganChase, the largest bank in the U.S. But according to data from the Department of Agriculture, it’s also the home of one of 850 “farmers” who live in Manhattan.
