Last week, NPR took a deeper look at the natural gas boom in the U.S. The special series, “The Fracking Boom: Missing Answers,” questions what the gas boom is doing to the air and water in communities where fracking has become a household name…
Breaking Exclusive
Sustainable Agriculture
Regulations for chlorothalonil were set by EPA using studies based on ingesting the chemical, even though the agency considers chlorothalonil ingestion to be “slightly toxic to non-toxic” when ingested and “highly toxic or acutely toxic” when inhaled…
An Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis highlights the skewed priorities and gross inequities in federal spending under the nation’s most far-reaching food and farm legislation…
NRDC Announces the Winners of the 2012 ‘Growing Green Awards’
Natural Resources Defense Council
05-17-2012
These vanguards are serving up a food system with generous portions of workplace justice, economic viability and ecological integrity. They are living proof that we can grow and eat food that is good for us, our communities and the planet…
Canada Moves Forward with New Organic Standards for Farmed Seafood
Organic Trade Association
05-11-2012
Aquaculture, the farming of aquatic plants and animals, is the fastest growing food production system in the world, producing about 50 percent of the seafood consumed today. Because aquatic farming relies on plant and animal husbandry…
This report sends a strong message that doing what’s good for the environment and what’s good for industry economics are not mutually exclusive. The organic food processing industry is creating jobs, stimulating our economy and delivering the…
Senate Agriculture Committee Approves Farm Bill
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
04-27-2012
Overall, the bill released out of Committee is an improvement over last year’s draft bill, but there is a still a ways to go to produce a bill that expands opportunities for family farmers to produce good food, sustain the environment, and contribute to…
Soil fumigants are applied at very high rates per acre and are readily transformed into a gas, making them difficult to control and prone to drift away from the application site. Rural families and farmworkers throughout California face…
More than a quarter of all the meat produced worldwide is now eaten in China, and the country’s 1.35 billion people are hungry for more. In 1978, China’s meat consumption of 8 million tons was one third the U.S. consumption…
Unfortunately, the “faster, bigger, cheaper” approach to food production that the U.S. has mastered is unsustainable and contributing to the destruction of our planet and your health. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma…
This year’s effort to renew America’s food and farm policy through the farm bill creates an opportunity for Congress to do more to support family farmers, protect the environment, encourage healthy diets and ensure better access to healthy food…
Water that runs off poorly managed fields that have been treated with chemical fertilizers and manure is loaded with nitrogen and phosphorus. These two potent pollutants set off a cascade of harmful consequences, threatening the drinking water…
Dow’s ‘Agent Orange’ corn will trigger a large increase in 2,4-D use—and our exposure to this toxic herbicide—yet USDA has not assessed how much, nor analyzed the serious harm to human health, the environment or neighboring farms…
The movement towards a more sustainable approach to agriculture is happening worldwide. In the U.S., consciousness is increasing, as evidenced by a number of Slow Food USA’s recent projects. This year alone, the volunteer-run…
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the past decade is the first in more than fifty years that has actually witnessed a net gain in the number of reported farmers…
These new farmers are employing innovation, dedication and a new spirit of entrepreneurism to bring fresh fruits, vegetables and livestock products to their local communities…
New Report Shows Opposition to Monsanto Growing Worldwide
Friends of the Earth International
04-06-2012
This new report documents the intense opposition to this powerful transnational company, which peddles its genetically modified products seemingly without regard for the associated social, economic and environmental costs…
We had nine strong nominations of the most damaging companies in the United States for our “Corporate Fools” contest. We’re very excited that our grand prize winner is Monsanto for its impacts on farmers, ecosystems and consumers…
Human beings charged with serious crimes can get plea bargains, but they have to admit their guilt and accept the punishment. Corporations charged with serious crimes get special treatment. They get to bargain for their punishment without admitting guilt…
As part of a pact to promote exports by Monsanto, the world’s largest GE seed producer, and the agricultural biotech industry, the Obama White House is seeking to insert GE crops on 73 refuges in 28 states to dispel growing eco-concerns both here and abroad…
Tug-of-War between Carrying Capacity and Rising Demand—Can We Keep This Up?
Worldwatch Institute
03-27-2012
Population growth combined with rising resource use, heavily tilted toward the world’s wealthy on a per capita basis but growing rapidly among the expanding global middle class, is reflected in rising worldwide resource consumption…
Whether it’s the regular tweets of the big-name food pundits or the countless anonymous contributors to online food discussions, an astonishing amount of advice is now dished out on what food we should buy and where we should buy it…
As if the disaster of RoundUp resistant superweeds sweeping our farmland weren’t enough, Monsanto is now preparing to launch an even greater disaster—a new soybean engineered to be resistant to the older, more toxic weedkiller, dicamba…
The battle over a cancer-causing pesticide often applied to California strawberry fields is over. The maker of the highly toxic methyl iodide has pulled the agriculture pesticide from the American marketplace in the face of mounting opposition…
‘Drift Catcher’ Holds Big Ag Accountable for High Levels of Airborne Pesticides
Pesticide Action Network
03-21-2012
The Drift Catcher is a simple, inexpensive and scientifically robust device that collects air samples which can then be analyzed for pesticides. It enables farmworkers and community members to document and draw attention to otherwise invisible chemical exposures…
“The organic sector continues to grow as people vote with their dollars at markets across the country, but demand for this verified label outpaces supply,” said Brise Tencer of California Certified Organic Farmers. “Federal support for organic farmers…
Nitrate Contaminating Drinking Water for More Than 254,000 Californians
Clean Water Action
03-19-2012
The report finds that nitrate is now polluting the drinking water for a quarter million people, with projections that millions more Californians will be affected in the future. The report estimates that providing safe water to the communities currently…
Farm Bill Platform Reflects Urgent Needs of Farmers and Food Entrepreneurs
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
03-19-2012
“Slow job recovery, a rapidly aging farm population, accelerating erosion and nutrient pollution and atrophied regional food infrastructure can be viewed as a crisis or an opportunity,” said Prolman. “Done right, a new farm bill can…
Foreign Companies Paid Billions to Run U.S. Crop Insurance Program
Environmental Working Group
03-16-2012
Twenty insurance companies in Bermuda, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, Canada and the U.S. were paid $7.1 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds from 2007 to 2011 to sell American farmers crop insurance policies…
“We support a strong farm safety net in order to keep farmers on the land producing food for our country. However, a safety net is not complete if it creates long-term threats to farm productivity by incentivizing farming practices that jeopardize our soil…
Earlier this week, 55 Members of Congress signed on to a letter that calls on U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D. to require the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) food. The bicameral letter…
