USDA

April 24, 2024

US health advocacy groups support Mexico in GMO trade dispute

By Johnathan Hettinger

More than a dozen North American organizations have weighed in to support Mexico in its trade dispute with the United States over Mexico’s ban of genetically modified (GM) corn, agreeing that the nation has the right to protect human health from food ingredients it considers hazardous.

“The burden of proof, so far generated for Mexico, [should] be reversed. It should be the United States that proves that there is no long-term risk to human health from the direct consumption of [genetically modified corn], in the particular case of the Mexican consumption pattern,” Mexico-based El Poder del Consumidor, a consumer rights association, wrote in comments filed earlier this month.

In the series of recent filings submitted to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement secretariat, only one group, the US-based Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) defended the United States’ position that Mexico is violating trade agreements by banning the corn for foods for human consumption. Bayer AG, which bought GMO crop developer Monsanto in 2018, is a BIO member as are other companies that make and sell GMO seeds and agrochemicals.

The Canadian government also defended the US position. Both Canada and the US accuse Mexico of failing to base its decision on GMO corn on valid scientific research. The governments say science shows GMO corn is not a threat to human health. Mexico disagrees, and says that solid research does show risks to humans from foods made with genetically altered corn. Mexico also objects to GMO corn for environmental and cultural reasons.

“There is a basis in the Mexican legal framework that makes it necessary for the Mexican government to transition away from GM corn to protect its people,” Javier Zuñiga, an attorney with Mexico-based El Poder del Consumidor, said in a webinar held on Tuesday. “It guarantees the right to live in a healthy way.”

Mexico is also working to ban glyphosate, the active ingredient in Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller and other herbicides. Glyphosate is commonly used on genetically modified crops, including corn. The ban on glyphosate in Mexico was set to go into effect April 1, but was delayed indefinitely last month.

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April 18, 2024

Healthy or high risk? New analysis warns of pesticide residues on some fruits and veggies

By Carey Gillam

Several types of fruits and vegetables generally considered to be healthy can contain levels of pesticide residues potentially unsafe for consumption, according to an analysis conducted by Consumer Reports (CR) released on Thursday.

The report, which is based on seven years of data gathered by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) as part of its annual pesticide residue reporting program, concluded that 20% of 59 different fruit and vegetable categories included in the analysis carried residue levels that posed “significant risks” to consumers of those foods.

Those high-risk foods included bell peppers, blueberries, green beans, potatoes and strawberries, according to CR. The group found that some green beans even had residues of an insecticide called acephate, which has been banned for use on green beans by US regulators since 2011. In one sample from 2022, levels of methamidophos (a breakdown product of acephate), were more
than 100 times the level CR scientists consider safe. In another sample, acephate levels were 7 times higher than CR considers safe.

Overall, out of the nearly 30,000 total fruit and vegetable samples for which CR examined data, about 8% percent were deemed to have residues at “high risk or very high risk”. Imported produce was more likely to carry high levels of pesticide residues than domestically supplied foods, the report said, noting that residue levels can vary widely from sample to sample.

The results “raise red flags,” according to CR. The report advises that children and pregnant women should consume less than a serving a day of high-risk fruits and vegetables, and less than half a serving per day of “very high-risk ones.”

“People need to be concerned because we see that the more data we gather on pesticides, the more we realize the levels that we previously thought to be safe turn out not to be,” said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at CR who was recently appointed to a USDA food safety advisory committee.

The organization said the “good news” is that the data showed residues in most of the foods sampled, including 16 of 25 fruit categories and 21 of 34 vegetable types, presented “little to worry about.” Nearly all organic samples showed no concerning levels of pesticide residues.

The report suggests consumers “try snap peas instead of green beans, cantaloupe in place of watermelon, cabbage or dark green lettuces for kale, and the occasional sweet potato instead of a white one.”

April 15, 2024

“It’s getting worse” – US failing to stem tide of harmful farm pollutants

By Keith Schneider

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.

Clark Porter is a 62-year-old farmer who lives in north-central Iowa where he spends part of his day working as an environmental specialist for the state and the other part raising corn and soybeans on hundreds of acres that his family has owned for over a century.

Though they’ve never met, and live 1,100 miles apart, Arnesen and Porter share a troubling kinship – both of their communities are tied to a deepening water pollution crisis that is fouling the environment and putting public health in peril across multiple US states.

Arnesen’s home lies near an oxygen-depleted expanse of the northern Gulf known as the “dead zone,” where dying algae blooms triggered by contaminants flowing out of the Mississippi River choke off oxygen, suffocating shrimp and other marine life.

Porter’s farm is positioned at the center of the Upper Mississippi River Basin where streams and other surface waters saturated with farm wastes flood into the big river, and contaminated groundwater permeates drinking water wells. Cancer incidence in Iowa is among the nation’s highest, and is rising.

The culprit at the center of it all is a colossal tide of fertilizer and animal manure that runs off fields in Iowa and other farm states to find its way into the Mississippi River. The same agricultural pollution problems are plaguing other iconic US waterways, including Chesapeake Bay and Lake Erie.

US farmers use more fertilizer and spread more manure than in most other countries, accounting for roughly 10% of global fertilizer use, behind China and India. But while the nutrients contained in animal manure and fertilizer are known to nourish crop growth, the resulting nitrogen and phosphorous that end up in waterways are known to create severe health problems for people.

A grand government plan to address the problem has cost taxpayers billions of dollars with minimal results so far, and nowhere is the problem more pronounced than in the Mississippi River Basin.

The reasons for the persistent pollution problem are multi-fold, including strong industry opposition to regulations to control the farm contaminants, and a perverse system in which some government programs incentivize farming practices that add to the pollution even as other government programs try to induce farmers to reduce the pollution.

“You’re talking about systemic dysfunction,” said Matt Liebman, professor emeritus of agronomy and sustainable agriculture at Iowa State University.

April 1, 2024

Mexico delays planned April 1 glyphosate ban

By Carey Gillam and Johnathan Hettinger

After standing firm for more than three years on plans to enact a ban on the weed killer glyphosate starting today, Mexican officials said they were delaying the ban.

Mexico is currently embroiled in a trade dispute with the United States over its unwillingness to accept genetically modified (GM) corn, typically altered to tolerate being sprayed with glyphosate and to manufacture toxins that repel pests, and Mexican officials have repeatedly stated that they consider both GM corn and glyphosate as threats to the health of the Mexican population as well as to the health of the environment.

But in a surprising reversal, less than a week before the ban was to kick in on April 1, government officials announced that glyphosate use could continue until other options for weed control are found. The move came amid reported heavy lobbying from powerful global agrochemical companies and pressure from US trade officials. Similarly, in 2019, Thailand backed down from a planned glyphosate ban after pressure from US officials and industry actors.

Fernando Bejarano, of the Pesticide Action Network in Mexico, said that the move comes after pressure from industry and US officials.

March 26, 2024

When measuring a farm’s carbon footprint – Britain has the right answer

By Dean Dickel

The key to achieving climate mitigation in agriculture depends on an accurate measure of carbon sequestration and emissions of major greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide.

Mitigation measures so far have revolved around public and private programs that offer payment for practices such as cover crops and no-till planting that industry experts have determined sequester carbon in the soil.

Carbon markets have also been initiated that pay farmers for their conservation practices. Called carbon credits, the payments are used to offset greenhouse gas emissions the buyers produce as a part of their business operations. Those offsets are commonly used to achieve their own climate claims such as “net zero.”

A number of farmers are already participating in these “markets,” but some in the industry remain dubious. “These aren’t markets, they’re just schemes,” says Jeff Schahczenski, an economist with the National Center for Appropriate Technology.

Farmers enrolling in carbon market programs will usually need to sign relatively long-term contracts that include very specific requirements to continue to qualify for payments. “I would advise farmers to have these contracts looked over by a lawyer before signing,” Schahczenski said.

Current “carbon markets” have also drawn fire from organic farmers and others because they mostly reward “new practices” as incentives for farmers to adopt carbon-friendly methods, all the while farmers who are already using those practices, many of them for years, are wondering out loud: “What’s in it for me?” Some have asked how long they would need to go back to bad practices before they would qualify for reinstituting good practices.

Current carbon initiatives available to farmers do not generally consider carbon equivalent emissions for synthetic nitrogen and other fertilizers and pesticides.

In Britain, however, the amount of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide being emitted and how much carbon is being sequestered in the soil can be measured by a software program that has been in use there for about ten years.

February 28, 2024

New report questions USDA support for certain climate “smart” practices

A new analysis of US Department of Agriculture (USDA) funding for “climate-smart” conservation practices argues that several are unlikely to actually have climate benefits and one may even increase harmful emissions, though government officials say the analysis is deeply flawed and based on “incorrect assumptions.”

With nearly $20 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to be used between 2023 and 2026, the USDA is investing more money than ever in combating greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, which makes up 10% of US emissions, according to the EPA.

The analysis from the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit environmental research and advocacy organization examines elements of the USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), which provides funding for conservation practices. Congress designated $8.45 billion for EQIP specifically. As part of that, an increasing amount of money is going towards so-called “climate-smart” practices aimed at sequestering carbon in soil or reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

EWG said that USDA is allowing farmers to claim this climate funding for implementing many practices that are unproven to help reduce emissions.

The report alleges, for example, that money can go toward a waste storage facility, used for livestock, would likely increase greenhouse gas emissions, according to the USDA’s own data.

The USDA expanded its “climate-smart” list – the specific practices that are eligible for funding – to allow 15 provisional practices, on which the USDA currently lacks data about their effect on emissions, EWG noted in its report.

USDA Press Secretary Allan Rodriguez called EWG’s analysis “fundamentally flawed, speculative, and rest on incorrect assumptions.”

“Unfortunately, EWG did not take into account the rigorous, science-based methodology used by USDA to determine eligible practices, nor the level of specificity required during the implementation process to ensure the practices’ climate-smart benefits are being maximized,” Rodriguez said in an emailed statement.

The single largest conservation practice funded over the past six years is the use of cover crops, according to EWG, with $505 million (9% of overall funding) going toward the practice. The use of cover crops is widely considered a strongly beneficial practice for soil health and sequestering carbon.

But only one of the other top 10 uses of the money is on the climate-smart list. Six of the new “provisional” practices were also in the top 10.

February 27, 2024

Hardline US stance ignores non-GM corn opportunity for American farmers

By Ken Roseboro and Timothy A. Wise

United States commodity organizations have cheered on the US government as it tries to get Mexico’s restrictions on genetically modified (GM) corn declared in violation of our trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, arguing that it cuts farmers’ export markets and sales revenues. But what if Mexico’s modest restrictions could instead turn out to benefit US farmers who shift to premium non-GM corn markets as international corn prices fall?

It sounds counter-intuitive, but it might just be true. The math is pretty simple. Despite all the bluster about Mexico’s February 2023 restrictions on GM corn, they affect a very small share of US exports. After negotiations with the US government over a more restrictive 2020 decree, Mexico dramatically limited its revised order, exempting GM feed corn from any mandated reductions. The restrictions apply only to the use of GM corn in tortillas and other products minimally processed for direct human consumption.

The restrictions were intended mainly as precautionary measures for a population that consumes more such corn products than anyone else on the planet. The corn for tortillas, and the minimally processed flour for tamales, enchiladas, and other Mexican staples, are overwhelmingly non-GM white and native varieties from Mexican producers.

Before the decree, Mexico was importing only about 600,000 tons of white corn from the US each year, a tiny share of the 16.5 million tons of US corn it imported last year. That means that barely 3% of US corn exports are potentially affected by Mexico’s restrictions. But the share is actually closer to 1%, because only an estimated half of US white corn are GM varieties, and barely half of US white corn exports are destined for Mexico’s tortilla industry, according to US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports.

So just 1% of US corn exports are potentially affected by Mexico’s policies. From the beginning, the Mexican government has asserted that its revised and less restrictive decree has little impact on American growers. They are right, and the US in the formal presentation of its complaint did not even attempt to quantify how many US farmers are affected.

And here’s the thing: Those who are affected can always switch to non-GM white food-grade corn and export to Mexico’s tortilla industry.

US farmers who do that could earn premium prices, ranging from $0.25 to $0.50 per bushel for non-GM white corn, according to industry sources. Such premiums could be particularly attractive right now to farmers who saw corn prices fall more than 30% last year.

US trade officials have preferred not to discuss non-GM opportunities for U.S. farmers, but some farmers and grain suppliers would welcome them.

December 15, 2023

“We can’t sit back” – Amid climbing cancer rates, Iowa health officials eye farm chemicals

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.

In a departure from other state cancer prevention programs, which rarely address environmental risk factors for cancer other than radon, a known cause of lung cancer, Iowa is working to better understand and make the case for limiting exposure to pesticides, commercial fertilizer, and animal manure used and generated by Iowa agriculture, among other environmental contaminants.

“These broader array of environmental risk factors are absolutely there for cancer. But they’re not paid attention to in state cancer control plans,” said Molly Jacobs, an epidemiologist at the University of Massachusetts, who is working with Iowa health authorities. “It’s quite unique that Iowa has addressed this as a priority in their plan. I applaud Iowa for taking on this task of thinking much broader and bigger, and changing this paradigm.”

The work to address environmental factors to reduce cancer cases began earlier this year and is being undertaken by the Iowa Cancer Consortium. It’s a 21-year-old, 650-member coalition of public health professionals, researchers, and health providers focused on controlling cancer. The consortium is led by Dr. Mary Charlton, an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa College of Public Health who also is research director of the Iowa Cancer Registry, which collects cancer data on Iowa citizens.

The consortium has launched an Environmental Task Force and a five-year plan for cutting public exposure to “environmental carcinogens.”

Farmers, agricultural executives, and state lawmakers have spent decades resisting any changes in farm practices that reduce the use of chemicals and nutrients, saying the inputs are needed to ensure ample food production.

But public health advocates say evidence tying the farm pollutants to disease is too strong to deny.

“We can’t sit back and say, ‘Wow. Somebody may not like this.’” said Kamyar Enshayan, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Education at the University of Northern Iowa. “Knowing what we do know, it’s just prudent that we support practices and systems that require significantly less fertilizer and pesticides.”

November 30, 2023

US push to turn farm manure into renewable energy draws concerns

By Keith Schneider

AMES, IOWA – In a gathering that drew the attendance of both farmers and Wall Street financiers, US regulators joined with oil giant Chevron at a November conference here to promote what backers promise will be a monumental breakthrough – systemic changes that would turn polluting agricultural waste into a source of renewable energy that replaces fossil fuels and slows climate change.

Speakers at the conference, which was hosted by Iowa State University and co-sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Agriculture, assured attendees that the answers to agricultural and climate woes can be found in technology that already exists: Key, according to conference promoters, is the rapid expansion of large methane biodigesters, which capture manure waste from the nation’s cattle, hog and poultry operations and convert it into a harvest of both public and private riches.

Water and air would be cleaner and farmers could see billions of dollars in new farm income, among other benefits, according to backers.

“It can provide a substantial portion of global energy needs,” Rudi Roeslein , CEO of Roeslein Alternative Energy, told the attendees. His company has built farm-based methane systems around the country that produce enough fuel to displace six million gallons of diesel fuel and 80,000 cars. “If we do this on a large scale in the US we could generate $63.6 billion worth of revenue for farmers around the country.”

Roeslein’s company promises on its website to “restore a balance” to farmland “by using the sustainably harvested biomass to create renewable natural gas.”

Chevron promotes its investment in manure biodigestion as “finding inspiration in nature.”

“I’m really excited about the innovation in this space,” Lisa Schulte Moore, a professor and co-director of the Bioeconomy Institute at Iowa State, said in an interview. “The renewable natural gas market is providing economic incentives for better management of manure.”

But critics argue that the emergence of an alliance of Big Ag, Big Oil, and Big Government to generate energy from livestock waste is ripe with peril. They say that air pollutants and waste discharged from farms and from already existing farm-based biodigesters receive scant federal and state oversight. They fear that without strict regulation, manure digesters could make water and air pollution worse, not better. Industrial-sized farms, including concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), already are one of the nation’s largest sources of water pollution, and among the principal causes of air pollution.

September 7, 2023

Amid steep global bird declines, farmers create refuges

New research finds that certain farming practices are benefiting some types of birds, underscoring the influence agriculture can have on important species at a time when bird populations around the world are in decline.

Farms that make use of smaller plots, varied crops, and tracts of forest, are helping boost bird populations in Costa Rica, scientists wrote in a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings add to previous evidence that diversified farming is an important conservation tool, said co-author and Stanford University researcher Nicholas Hendershot.

“There is a really huge benefit for biodiversity from these diversified farming practices,” he said.

Hendershot and his colleagues determined that over 18 years, bird species living on diversified Costa Rica farms were more likely than those in forests to have increasing, rather than decreasing populations. The varied crops and natural features on diversified farms provide a home for the birds and for insects and other animals that birds eat, said Hendershot.

On intensified farms, which generally plant only one crop and make use of high amounts of pesticides, the only species of birds thriving long-term were those that were adapted to highly-degraded landscapes, indicating the importance of diversified farms to provide habitat for other bird species, he said.