Lax regulations and mismanaged applications in the US are to blame for the tons of nitrogen fertilizer that runs off into waterways each year and contributes to water and air pollution, cancer and environmental damage, according to a report released Monday.
Iowans are suffering from higher rates of more than a dozen types of cancers linked to pesticides and pollutants than the rest of the country, with researchers saying the risk of pesticide exposure alone may rival that of smoking, according to a new report.
By Carey Gillam
US regulators must take immediate action to address a “long-ignored health crisis” stemming from dangerously contaminated drinking water in Iowa, according to a legal petition filed by environmental and health advocacy groups this week.
VENICE, LA. Kindra Arnesen is a 46-year-old commercial fishing boat operator who has spent most of her life among the pelicans and bayous of southern Louisiana, near the juncture where the 2,350-mile-long Mississippi River ends at the Gulf of Mexico.
By Shannon Kelleher
Following a legal challenge from environmental groups, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday proposed new standards aimed at reducing water pollution from slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. The move is the agency’s first such effort in two decades.
Faced with a startlingly high cancer rate in the key US farm state of Iowa, public health leaders are taking the politically precarious step of acknowledging that preventing disease necessitates cutting exposure to potentially cancer-causing chemicals, including those used in agriculture.
BERNE, Minn. – It was a hot afternoon in mid-July and 60-year-old Brian Bennerotte was making a pilgrimage of sorts, navigating a shotgun-straight, gravel road south of Minneapolis on a journey through a landscape stitched with crop and livestock farms as far as the eye can see.
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.
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
It’s been 33 years since an Iowa State University agronomist named Fred Blackmer thought he’d struck gold for Midwestern corn farmers. Using a fairly simple three-step method, Blackmer developed an analytical tool that could accurately tell farmers exactly how much fertilizer their fields needed to produce abundant harvests each season.