crops

July 16, 2024

A battle in rural Midwest as farmers fight carbon capture pipeline

By Nina Elkadi

Kathy Stockdale and her husband have spent almost 50 years working the land in central Iowa. As a family farmer raising corn and soybeans, Stockdale knows how to deal with harsh weather, poor crop prices, and an array of other challenges that come with a making a living in agriculture.

But the operation she has spent a lifetime cultivating now faces a threat unlike any Stockdale has previously faced: Developers are planning to carve through her property with a pipeline carrying hazardous CO2 gas from ethanol plants, and there is little she can do to stop them.

The pipeline would run a mere 700 feet from Stockdale’s front doorstop and would create a barrier between the home she shares with her husband and the nearby home where her son lives. The farm’s soils and wetlands would be forever altered by the pipeline intrusion, and if the pipeline were to rupture, the damage could be catastrophic, Stockdale fears.

“It consumes your thoughts. You don’t sleep. You ask any of the landowners who have been fighting this, it’s been hard, it’s been stressful,” she said.

The Stockdales are among many farm families in Iowa and four other Midwestern states fighting to kill the pipeline, which was proposed three years ago by Summit Carbon Solutions (SCS) as the “world’s largest carbon capture and storage project.” SCS had initially planned to start operating the 2,500-mile pipeline network, dubbed the Midwest Carbon Express, this year. But opposition across the rural Midwest has delayed the project.

July 11, 2024

Air pollution threatens key crop pollinators, study finds

By Shannon Kelleher

Air pollution jeopardizes bees and other pollinators essential for food production, according to a new study that sheds light on a significant but underrecognized threat to beneficial insects.

In a study published Thursday in the journal Nature Communications, researchers found that bees, as well as some moths and butterflies, became about a third less efficient at foraging for food, on average, after exposure to elevated air pollution levels. The findings were based on an analysis of data from 120 scientific papers on how 40 types of insects respond to ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter.

“Air pollution is not generally considered as a driver of pollinator declines, but these results indicate that air pollution should be considered as a further factor that is driving pollinator declines,” said James Ryalls, an ecologist at the University of Reading and an author of the study. Declines in pollinator health can translate to declines in crop yields, Ryalls said.

The researchers noted that insects generally seen as harmful to agriculture, such as sap-sucking aphids, did not experience significant declines in their ability to forage from exposure to air pollution.

Air pollution may be more disruptive for bees and other insects because it muddles the chemical signals they use to communicate and sense their surroundings, the researchers suggest, while pests tend to rely more heavily on visual cues or others.

Surprisingly, even low concentrations of air pollutants below the threshold considered safe for humans harmed the pollinators, Ryalls said.

May 28, 2024

US regulator accused of “egregious” misconduct in PFAS testing of pesticides

By Carey Gillam

Documents obtained from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicate the agency may have presented false information to the public about testing for harmful contaminants in pesticides, according to allegations being made by a watchdog group and a former EPA research fellow.

The claims come almost a year to the day after the EPA issued a May 2023 press release that stated the agency found no per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in testing of samples of certain insecticide products. The press release contradicted a published study by the former EPA researcher that had reported finding PFAS in the same pesticide products.

PFAS contamination is a hot topic in environmental and public health circles because certain types of PFAS are known to be very hazardous for human health, and world governments and public health advocates are pushing to sharply limit exposure to these types of chemicals. Accurate testing for PFAS contamination is key to regulating exposure, making the accuracy and transparency of EPA testing a critical issue.

The allegations that the EPA incorrectly reported some PFAS test results were made Tuesday by the nonprofit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), led by former EPA employees.

PEER Director of Scientific Policy Kyla Bennett said that the organization obtained pesticide product testing data from the EPA through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The documents they received back from the EPA showed the agency had indeed found PFAS in the tested products, directly contradicting the press release the agency had issued.

“It’s pretty outrageous,” said Bennett. “You don’t get to just ignore the stuff that doesn’t support your hypothesis. That is not science. That is corruption. I can only think that they were getting pressure from pesticide companies.”

Joining in the allegations is environmental toxicologist Steven Lasee, who authored the 2022 study that the EPA challenged. Lasee is a consultant for state and federal government agencies on PFAS contamination projects and participated as a research fellow for the EPA’s Office of Research and Development from February 2021 to February 2023.

March 14, 2024

New book details rise of “dystopian agricultural horror show”

By Sara June Jo-Saebo

Few books about America’s industrial agriculture system and food industry uncover the billionaires behind its biggest corporations. But a new book by Austin Frerick, a former tax economist at the US Treasury Department and current Fellow at Yale University’s Thurman Arnold Project, reveals the amassed fortunes of Big Ag’s most powerful families. Barons: Money, Power, and Corruption of America’s Food Industry exposes these ill-gotten gains and a cadre of complicit government players who made it all possible.

With the recent release of the USDA’s dismal report Census of Agriculture (February 13, 2024), Frerick’s book is well-timed. The Ag Census disclosed that 141,733 farms shuttered between 2017 and 2022. Barons reveals that these losses happened at the same time that big food producers and merchants garnered both stunning profits and government handouts.

Frerick is an expert in agriculture policy with an antitrust law focus. He served as a co-chair for the Biden campaign’s Agriculture and Antitrust Policy Committee. In Barons, Frerick steers his experience and scholarship into a pointed denunciation of Big Ag’s unbridled and monopolistic wealth. It’s an overdue censure. In fact, many times during the book, I was surprised by a recurring sense of personal validation.

Being from rural Iowa and witnessing the 1980’s Farm Crisis take hold of my family and neighbors,

Barons made me feel like somebody was standing up for the farm community of my youth. It’s a painful loss knowing that today’s industrial food system rises from the ashes of America’s family farms. And it is no accident.

For folks who haven’t kept up with our recent history in food production, Barons will be a wake-up call about the food in our grocery stores.

March 11, 2024

Farmers facing PFAS pollution struggle for solutions

By Shannon Kelleher

When Jim Buckle and his wife, Hannah Hamilton, started their 18-acre organic vegetable farm in Unity, Maine more than a decade ago, they wanted to grow the healthiest food possible. But after a wholesale buyer asked them to test their operation for toxic chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in 2022, the couple was in for a shock.

The soil tests came back clean, as the couple expected. But Buckle’s heart sank when the results arrived for the well water they used to wash and irrigate their vegetables. Through no fault of their own, the farm Buckle and Hamilton had carefully cultivated for nearly a decade was contaminated with PFAS-laced sewage sludge that had been used as fertilizer on land nearby years earlier.

Faced with evidence that their harvests were also likely contaminated with potentially hazardous PFAS toxins, he and Hamilton made the decision to close down their farming operations, at least temporarily, as they wrestled with how they might clean up their farm and protect it from future contamination.

“We said, ‘wow, this is crazy. We actually have this problem,’” Buckle said.

About a year earlier, first-generation organic farmers Katia Holmes and her husband faced a similar crisis on their 700-acre Misty Brook Farm in Albion, Maine, where they raise livestock and grow grains. In their case, the well water was fine, said Holmes. But testing of their cows’ milk – and the hay they bought from a neighbor to feed the cows – came back with elevated levels of PFAS.

Further testing revealed that a previous owner of the Holmes’ land had spread sewer sludge on certain fields 20 years ago, leaving behind PFAS in the soil.

“We called all the stores and pulled all our products,” said Holmes.

Buckle’s and Holmes’ stories are, sadly, becoming more common.

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February 14, 2024

Pesticide-treated seeds harm earthworms, study finds

By Shannon Kelleher

Commonly used pesticides pose a toxic threat to earthworms, creatures considered crucial for the health of soil used to grow crops, according to a new study published Wednesday.

The study builds on evidence that a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids, or neonics, are harming a range of species important for planetary health. Neonics have been banned in many countries but are popular with farmers in the United States.

The authors of the new study said they found that when earthworms were exposed to four different types of neonics, as well as the fungicide difenoconazole, they suffered damage to their mitochondrial DNA and gained significantly less weight than earthworms not exposed to the chemicals. The pesticides were especially damaging when the worms were exposed to a neonic plus the fungicide in combination.

The findings were published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

“We need to re-evaluate the toxicity of neonics and the synergistic effects of neonics and systemic pesticides in those non-target organisms when they are applied to soil simultaneously,” said Chensheng (Alex) Lu, a professor at Southwest University in Chongqing, China and an author of the study.

“The contribution of earthworms to crop yields is as essential as pollination done by honey bees,” he added. “A healthy soil is simply not possible without the presence of earthworms.”

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.”

October 25, 2023

Glyphosate cancer findings of “extreme concern” as Europe weighs reauthorization of pesticide

By Carey Gillam

European researchers have found new evidence linking popular weed killing products to cancer at levels currently considered safe.

The study focused on glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide and other brands, and is the latest of a series of studies examining the safety of the world’s most widely used weed-killing chemical.

Notably, the work comes as the European Union is wrestling over whether or not to keep glyphosate products on the market after the current approval expires in December.

The research has not yet been peer reviewed, but was presented Wednesday at an international scientific conference.

“We felt an urgency to present this data, and provide it to policy makers and the public,” said Daniele Mandrioli, director of the Ramazzini Institute in Bologna, Italy, which is overseeing a multi-faceted research program investigating glyphosate impacts called the Global Glyphosate Study.

“This is of extreme concern. We couldn’t sit on this data,” Mandrioli said.

Glyphosate is so widely used that it is ubiquitous in the environment- commonly found in food, water and human urine samples.

July 25, 2023

Farmers face steep crop losses in US Northeast amid summer storms

By Grace van Deelen

While much of the country suffers from extreme heat this summer, the US Northeast has seen excessive rains and extreme flooding, conditions that have decimated crops, drowned livestock, and left farmers struggling.

July has been especially wet for Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Hartford, Connecticut, for instance, has seen over 400% more rainfall than the historical average. After an already wetter-than average summer, a series of strong storms have overwhelmed rivers, causing them to jump their banks and flood farm fields across the region.

“It is certainly the worst flooding we’ve had in the last century,” said Scott Waterman, a spokesperson for the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets. “The revenue losses are looking like they’re going to be incredibly high.

At least 7,000 acres of farmland in Vermont alone have been lost, according to Waterman.

Farmers are now working on cleaning up destroyed farm fields, replanting some crops, and repairing damaged equipment with an eye towards a wetter, more weather-extreme future as climate change worsens. Crops grown in the Northeast at the time floodwaters rose included tomatoes, squash, salad greens, cucumbers, corn, herbs, cabbage, onions, and feed for livestock.

December 13, 2022

Interview: “Transformational change” is needed as severe climate change impacts loom

By Pam Strayer

Last month, Cornell University professor Rachel Bezner Kerr traveled to Egypt where she addressed scientists and political leaders gathered from around the world at the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27).

Bezner Kerr is a co-director of graduate studies for Cornell’s Department of Global Development and one of the three lead coordinating authors of a chapter about food, fiber and “other ecosystem products” for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Bezner Kerr believes that time is running out when it comes to options for preventing severe climate change impacts on people and nature.

Among her observations, Bezner Kerr is calling for a systemic transformation across the agricultural industry, which is responsible for approximately 33% of carbon emissions, including those associated with nitrogen-based fertilizers.

The New Lede (TNL) spoke with Bezner Kerr upon her return from COP 27 about her views on how and why a food system transformation is needed for climate resilience. The following is an edited and condensed account of the conversation:

TNL: When we think of climate change, why do we also need to think about a sweeping change to our current agricultural system?

Bezner Kerr: That is a key message coming out of the IPCC report–that we need transformational change and for multiple reasons. One, in terms of the food system, right now the way we produce food is heavily reliant on fossil fuels. It’s not something that you can just address one component and then your food system is set.