By Keith Schneider
WINONA, Minn. – Corn drapes every curve and rise here in Winona County, Minnesota – seemingly endless fields of grain that contribute to the food, fuel and finances of a robust US agricultural economy.
By Carey Gillam
Testimony is underway this week in a key federal court hearing aimed at examining scientific evidence about allegations that a widely used weedkiller called paraquat causes Parkinson’s disease.
By Carey Gillam
As US regulators work to tackle the toxic threat posed by a class of widely used chemicals known as PFAS, debate is heating up over who could – and should – get hit with the cleanup costs.
By Keith Schneider
MAHNOMEN, Minn. – It’s been centuries since the White Earth tribe migrated west across North America, following an ancestral prophecy to go where “food grows on water.” One of seven Ojibwe bands in Minnesota, White Earth found that prophecy fulfilled along the many shallow clear lakes that lie in the state’s northern forests, where luminous green stalks of wild rice grow in abundance.
It’s been over 20 years since a 24-year-old migrant farmworker named Constantino Cruz collapsed and died following a nine-hour shift picking tomatoes in 107-degree Fahrenheit heat near Bakersfield, California.
By Keith Schneider
There’s no way to describe farm-related nutrient pollution other than what it is – a national scandal. A tiny minority of Americans, half of one percent, is grossly fouling the waters for tens of millions of others.
By Keith Schneider
IOWA CITY, IOWA – Here in the heart of US farm country, the wretched quality of Iowa waterways is a well-known lament. Farm fields laden with synthetic fertilizers and manure produce bounties of over 2 billion bushels of corn each year, but those same fields also produce a torrent of run-off that contaminates virtually every mile of the state’s streams and rivers and every acre of lakes and ponds.
As fears about climate change grow, a new “gold rush” of carbon credit programs are incentivizing US farmers to slash greenhouse gas emissions generated by the practices they use growing crops and raising livestock. But experts say the programs face difficulty in ensuring that the credits provided truly match emission cuts.
By Bill Walker
At the start of the California Gold Rush in 1849, Tulare Lake was the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi River: In wet years, the shallow inland sea that is fed by four rivers covered 800 square miles or more of the lower San Joaquin Valley.
With the upcoming expiration of the US Farm Bill in September, lawmakers are drawing battle lines over numerous issues that impact the lives of millions of people, from food assistance to farm subsidies and more.
EWG
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