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.
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.
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Last 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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Near record concentrations of farm pollution were measured flowing down the Mississippi River in May, according to a recently published report.
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The costs of two farm subsidy programs are spiraling out of control, belying Congressional assurances in 2014 that they would save taxpayers’ money, according to two recent estimates.
A news investigation last week reaffirmed that nitrate levels in the Des Moines River watershed exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s drinking water limit, posing a threat to infants, pregnant women and others for whom excessive nitrate can be a health hazard.
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Keeping water clean and safe enough to drink is a tough job, especially when there are forces that sabotage this vital public health goal.
The farm subsidy lobby has been proclaiming that growers are suffering through a “farm crisis” as a result of falling commodity prices. A new EWG analysis released today, however, shows that the large farm businesses that receive the most subsidies are not doing as poorly as the industry claims, especially compared to other American families.
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We need a consistent approach to agricultural conservation.Driving around central Iowa on a crop survey this spring, EWG analysts came across a far-too-common scene: adjacent fields reflecting disparate responses to the problem of agricultural runoff. EWG’s report, “Fooling Ourselves,” showed that voluntary programs to encourage planting of protective vegetation along vulnerable waterways were not achieving lasting results.
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If you care about the environment, human health or helping small growers, you should support reform of the federal crop insurance program.
Read MorePollution in Minnesota’s drinking water has gotten worse in recent years, but no one wants to call out the industry responsible. It’s been the primary source of water pollution for decades, making water in some areas of the country dangerous to drink and costing local taxpayers millions of dollars to clean it up.
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Recently, spring weather in upper Midwest has been warmer and dryer, leading farmers in Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota to plant corn in early April. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Crop Progress Report, since 2013 there's been a big rise in corn planted by mid-April, the earliest farmers in the region can plant and be eligible for federally subsidized crop insurance.
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