Between 2014 and 2015, three federal farm subsidy programs paid farmers multiple times for the same loss in crop yield or decline in crop price.

Instead of expanding CRP, more funding in the 2018 Farm Bill should go to both of these highly effective programs. That would be a better deal for taxpayers, the environment and public health.

As the southern Great Plains get hotter and drier, is federal policy that encourages farmers not to adapt to climate change leading to another Dust Bowl?

Across the nation, Americans are seeing the price of farm pollution firsthand in contaminated drinking water, toxic algal blooms and pesticide-laden foods.

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 crop insurance industry must be getting desperate. The federal crop insurance program from which this industry profits handsomely is coming under increasing scrutiny. The industry's claims to...

The head of the crop insurance industry's trade group is objecting to an EWG analysis that found that crop insurance companies could easily absorb cuts to their taxpayer-guaranteed rate of return. But...

In a recent article in Politico, reporter David Rogers took issue with estimates of per-acre subsidy payments that growers could receive under the Agriculture Risk Coverage farm subsidy program...

Buried in a recently released U.S. Government Accountability Office report is staggering evidence that the federal government's crop insurance program serves as another source of farm business income...

Simple, well-understood conservation measures would go a long way toward saving Lake Erie and hundreds of other water bodies afflicted with periodic algal blooms.

Next Tuesday (Aug. 5), Missourians will decide if their state constitution should be amended to enshrine a so-called “Right-to-Farm” provision. The vaguely worded and open-ended amendment states, “the...

A report released today (Aug. 27) by the Natural Resources Defense Council supplies the latest evidence that the federal crop insurance program desperately needs fundamental reform.

Since it was first authorized in the 1996 farm bill, USDA's Environmental Quality Incentives Program has grown into the single most important federal program that helps farmers and ranchers protect...

There's a lot of nonsense being circulated as the full Senate debates the farm bill and members finally bring up amendments to make common sense reforms to the federal crop insurance program.

Here's the bottom line: Both farm bills proposed this week (May 13) by the House and Senate Agriculture committees would cut funding for the hungry and the environment to help boost subsidies for the...

In a recently posted blog titled Something's Gotta Give, Marcia Zarley Taylor proves once again that she is one of the most cogent observers of crop insurance. Taylor is executive editor of the...

Democrats in Iowa tried hard to turn Congress' failure to pass a federal farm bill into a political liability for their Republican opponents. It didn't work.

The Mississippi River is alive again here as it flows through the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Once again, this urban river runs clear and its waters are a world-class fishery for walleye, sauger...

Few Americans know that taxpayers finance a $90 billion crop insurance program that provides millions in subsidies to highly profitable farm businesses and insurance companies. And even fewer know...

The Senate is expected to start debate this week on adoption of common sense reforms to the federal crop insurance program. This issue could not be more important. Crop insurance has quietly become...