Midwest
EWG’s mission is to empower people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. In the Midwest we pursue our mission by working to move agriculture in a more sustainable direction. Farmland dominates the landscape and watersheds in the Midwest. The way that land is used and managed has profound effects on our health through the water we drink and the food we eat.
Farming can actually make water cleaner and the environment healthier. Farms doing exactly that are scattered across the Midwest. We bring a unique combination of remote-sensing, big data and landscape analysis to bear to build pressure to change policy to heal the damage done by poor farming practices and to build excitement about how much healthier the environment could be through often simple changes in the way we farm.
Central Iowans got bad news about the quality of their drinking water on Friday when a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by the Des Moines Water Works against three northern Iowa drainage districts.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is giving farmers millions of taxpayer dollars a year to support the planting of cover crops, which reduce polluted runoff from farm fields. To see how this investment is paying off, the Environmental Working Group has documented – for the first time – the extent of cover crop use in three Corn Belt states.
Read MoreHere’s some news you can use as you begin your weekend.
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Mapping Cover Crops on Corn and Soybeans in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa, 2015-2016
Read MoreToday, in a near-partisan vote, Scott Pruitt was confirmed as the next head of the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s no secret that EWG opposed him for the job.
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Oklahoma has a dangerous and widespread groundwater pollution problem caused by illegal discharges of toxic swine waste from industrial-scale swine Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs. But an investigation by Waterkeeper Alliance and EWG found that Scott Pruitt – the state’s attorney general since 2011 and President Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency – has not taken a single legal action to enforce Oklahoma’s stringent water quality laws and protect the public from a pollutant that can be deadly for infants.
Read MoreThere they go again. In the run-up to the 2018 Farm Bill, agriculture interests are squawking that America is facing a new farm crisis – one that can only be staved off by billions more taxpayer dollars propping up a notoriously bloated and shamefully misdirected morass of federal farm subsidies.
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The first week of the Trump administration is just about over, and what a week it’s been. It started with a media blackout at EPA and a freeze on EPA grants to states and localities used to protect drinking water and air.
Read MoreOklahoma environmental advocates and attorneys met yesterday with members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to strongly refute Scott Pruitt’s claims that he advanced pollution cleanup efforts as the state’s attorney general.
Last weekend, EWG reported that after taking $40,000 in campaign contributions from poultry industry interests, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt – President Trump's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency – stymied cleanup of a protected river polluted by factory farms’ chicken manure. The New York Times cited EWG’s work and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., grilled Pruitt on his connection to the polluted river during the Senate confirmation hearing.
Read MoreLast fall, an EWG investigation debunked the agriculture industry’s claims that American farms “feed the world.” In fact, fewer than 1 percent of U.S. exports go toward feeding the hungriest nations.
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Beginning this Friday, EWG will post news you can use – some of the recent media coverage featuring our content and spokespeople.
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The only way to eliminate world hunger and poverty is to make agriculture more environmentally sustainable.
Across the nation, Americans are seeing the price of farm pollution firsthand in contaminated drinking water, toxic algal blooms and pesticide-laden foods.
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Every time we at EWG talk about the damage farming can do to drinking water, air quality, public health and quality of life, we hear: “Well, you know we have to feed the world.”
Read MoreU.S. agribusiness spokesmen routinely defend practices that pollute air and water, and destroy soil by claiming that American farmers are doing what it takes to “feed the world.”
Read MoreThe key to ending world hunger while protecting the environment is to help small farmers in the developing world increase their productivity and income.
Read MoreWhat if your neighbor poured toxic chemicals into your drinking water but only agreed to pay for part of the cleanup? Well, that’s exactly what’s happening in northeastern Wisconsin.
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Most of the food Americans eat is produced in ways that harm the environment and worsen climate change. The federal government subsidizes unhealthy crops that have contributed to Americans’ expanding waistlines, while Monsanto and big agriculture push pesticides and genetically modified seeds on farmers.
A new study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that farm conservation practices in some parts of the Midwest have reduced farm pollution by 5-to-34 percent. Yet researchers are measuring near-record concentrations of farm pollution flowing down the Mississippi River this year.
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