farming

January 29, 2025

“Epidemic of chronic disease” spotlighted in Kennedy confirmation hearing

By Carey Gillam

America’s “epidemic of chronic disease” was spotlighted Wednesday in a contentious senate confirmation hearing for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy, nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services, was grilled on multiple issues in the Senate Committee on Finance, but Kennedy and supporting senators repeatedly focused their comments on the range of diseases plaguing the US population, particularly children.

“President Trump has asked me to end the chronic disease epidemic and make America healthy again,” Kennedy said in a tense exchange with one senator who asked him if he was going to be a “rubber stamp” for Trump’s policies. “That is what I’m doing. If we don’t solve that problem senator, all the other disputes we have…. All of those are moving deck chairs around on the Titanic. Our ship is sinking.”

Kennedy said rising levels of chronic disease pose an “existential threat”.

“No other nation in the world has what we have here. We have the highest chronic disease burden of any country in the world,” he said.

Kennedy said a key culprit “poisoning the American people” is the “highly chemical intensive processed foods” regularly consumed in the US.

Scientific research is needed to more deeply understand the connections, he said.

“We don’t have good science on all these things and that is deliberate… not to study the things are truly making us sick.”

January 21, 2025

Close to 30 million Americans face limited water supplies, government report finds

By Carey Gillam

Nearly 30 million people are living in areas of the US with limited water supplies as the country faces growing concerns over both water availability and quality, according to a new assessment by government scientists.

The US Geological Survey (USGS), which is part of the Department of the Interior, issued what it said was a first-of-its-kind report last week, with USGS Director David Applegate warning of “increasing challenges to this vital resource.” The Jan. 16 report, based on data from 2010 to 2020, examines not only water supplies but also demand patterns and water quality. The report showed that most of the country had supplies that exceeded demand during the period examined, but worrisome trends were noted.

“Water availability is an issue everywhere in our country and beyond,” Lori Sprague, USGS national program manager for the water availability assessment, said in a webinar presenting the report. “It raises the question – do we have enough water to sustain our nation’s economy, ecosystems and drinking water supplies?”

Among the key findings from the new analysis was that people who are considered “socially vulnerable” have a higher risk of experiencing limited water supplies. Overall, about 27 million people lived in areas where the USGS found a “high degree of local water stress.” And a higher proportion of the people living in those areas were considered socially vulnerable compared with those living in areas of more local water availability, the USGS said.

The report also added to evidence of widespread pollution in waterways across the US Midwest and High Plains regions where worrisome levels of nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations – tied in large part to large animal agriculture operations – can pose a threat to human health.

January 18, 2025

EPA moves to withdraw decision on paraquat, delays report on risks

By Carey Gillam

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving to withdraw its interim regulatory decision on paraquat, announcing that it needs more time to examine the potential health effects of the weed killing chemical that has been widely used in agriculture for decades, but also linked for years to the incurable brain ailment known as Parkinson’s disease.

The EPA had promised to issue a report by Friday, January 17 updating its position on paraquat after a petition filed by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and several other health advocacy organizations challenged the EPA’s 2021 interim registration review decision in which the agency concluded that there was “insufficient” evidence linking paraquat exposure to Parkinson’s.

That interim EPA decision did call for certain mitigation measures to reduce risks the agency said it found necessary to protect human health and the environment, and labels on paraquat products were amended in 2022 to reflect those measures. But critics have pressed the EPA to go further and ban the pesticide entirely.

The petition, filed in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, challenged not only the agency’s position on Parkinson’s risk, but also the EPA’s analysis of respiratory and dermal exposures, exposure risks from paraquat drift, and how to balance paraquat’s risks and benefits.

As part of the process of reexamining its interim decision, the agency said a year ago that it would spend 2024 analyzing new information about paraquat health effects and considering public comments about the issue. The agency said last year it would issue a final document and potential next steps for paraquat use by the mid-January 2025 date.

Instead, on Friday, the EPA said it is delaying any action. The agency issued a statement saying it had “determined that additional data are necessary to resolve the uncertainty” surrounding certain paraquat risks. The agency cited the “potential for paraquat to volatize,” and said it would be trying to determine potential “inhalation risks to bystanders from the volatilization of paraquat.” Such data “could change the underlying human health risk assessment,” and the regulatory decision based on that assessment, the EPA said.

And on Friday, the EPA asked the 9th Circuit to allow it to withdraw its interim decision on paraquat while it further investigates the concerns surrounding the chemical.

“EPA intends to withdraw the Interim Decision and will promptly do so once the Court rules on this motion,” the agency states in its court filing. If the court agrees, the case brought by the health advocacy groups will become moot, the EPA argues in the filing.

January 16, 2025

Certified “naturally grown” offers alternative to the USDA organic label

By Harshawn Ratanpal, KBIA

Prairie du Rocher, Ill. – On a cold winter day in Illinois, three little pigs are resting in a three-sided shed. They have plenty of space to trot around, as they do when Jennifer Duensing approaches. Those footsteps mean it’s feeding time. They squeal impatiently, waiting for their usual diet of organic feed, which sometimes includes vegetables like squash grown right here on the farm.

The farm, Illinois Country Harvest, had been in Duensing’s family for generations when she took it over in 2015. She was new to farming, so there was a lot to learn about how to best manage the near-12 acres now under her purview. But one thing she definitely knew was that she wanted to manage the land, crops and animals without chemical inputs.

“We use absolutely zero chemicals, which means if we have pests, we don’t spray,” she said.

There are countless certifications she could have chosen and labels she could slap on her products to try and prove her farm has good practices. In the midst of rising consumer demand for organic foods, a nonprofit called “A Greener World” which “promotes practical, sustainable solutions in agriculture by supporting farmers and educating consumers” has a 15-page guide that attempts to clear up consumer confusion around labels that use terms like “natural,” “humane” and “organic.”

Certified Naturally Grown was a perfect fit for how she was already running her farm.

“Our certification process is really pretty simple, because we have zero chemical inputs,” she said. “There’s nothing we had to justify or have reasoning for, because we just do not use anything.”

Keith Schenider Yakima long line of cattle

December 17, 2024

Regulators battle Oregon and Washington farmers over limits to farm pollution

By Keith Schneider

SUNNYSIDE, Washington – Waters from the snowpack of the Cascade Mountains support orchards, vineyards and dairies here in the Yakima Valley of eastern Washington State, boosting a flourishing farm economy and helping to stock store grocery shelves nationwide.

But as the waters flow, so do a host of dangerous farm pollutants, contaminating drinking water wells in the valley and through the adjacent Lower Umatilla Basin across the state line in Oregon.

Regulators and citizen groups have been pressing crop and livestock producers for years to document and rein in the pollution, tightening restrictions on some of the nation’s largest dairies, and bringing litigation against several seen out of compliance.

The actions put both Washington and Oregon among a growing number of US states leading a controversial national campaign to make agriculture more accountable for its mammoth wastes.

“There is a lot of new energy around this problem,” said Salini Sasidharan, assistant professor of groundwater management at Oregon State University. “A lot of investment is being made. There’s momentum here to make a real difference.”

But progress is slow and results are mixed. And farmers are fighting back, saying that they’re doing their best to balance environmental protection and business needs, and the crackdown on their business threatens not just their livelihoods, but also potentially the abundance of the country’s food supply.

December 4, 2024

Study indicates “persistent, damaging” effects of glyphosate herbicide exposure on brain health

By Carey Gillam

Exposure to a widely used weed killing chemical could be having “persistent, damaging effects” on brain health, according to a new study.

The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of Neuroinflammation, found that laboratory mice exposed to glyphosate herbicide developed significant brain inflammation, a condition associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. The researchers, many who are associated with a neurodegenerative disease research center at Arizona State University (ASU), said the symptoms continued even long after exposure ended.

“This work is yet another step forward in understanding the impact of this widely used herbicide on the brain,” lead ASU researcher Ramon Velazquez said. “But more research is needed to determine the impact that glyphosate has on the brain since most Americans are exposed to this herbicide on a daily basis.” Velazquez noted that the work is particularly important given the increasing incidence of cognitive decline in the aging population, particularly in rural communities where glyphosate is used in farming.

Glyphosate is the most commonly used herbicide globally – made popular by Monsanto Co as the active ingredient in its Roundup brand, among others. It has been used so extensively by farmers, homeowners and industrial and municipal users for so long that it is considered ubiquitous – found in food, water and in human urine samples. A 2022 report by a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said more than 80% of urine samples drawn from children and adults in a US health study contained glyphosate.

Several authors of the new paper were also part of a team that published a prior, related study that examined the impact of glyphosate when it infiltrates the brain.

December 2, 2024

EPA takes partial step to ban chlorpyrifos in a move called “unconscionable”

By Carey Gillam

The long and winding regulatory road for a pesticide known to be harmful to developing babies took another turn on Monday as the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it was planning to only partially ban the insecticide chlorpyrifos in farming.

Under pressure from powerful agricultural industry interests and ordered by a federal court to consider the factors raised by the farming groups in a legal petition, the EPA said it would continue to allow chlorpyrifos to be used by farmers growing 11 crops, including apples, asparagus, citrus, peaches, strawberries, wheat, soybeans and others, despite evidence that the pesticide is associated with “neurodevelopmental effects” that can impair the normal development of children. Other uses in farming would be banned, the agency said.

In the most recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pesticide residue monitoring report, chlorpyrifos was the 11th most frequently found pesticide in human food samples out of 209 different pesticides detected by FDA testing.

“EPA continues to prioritize the health of children,” Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said in a statement. “This proposed rule is a critical step forward as we work to reduce chlorpyrifos in or on food and to better protect people, including infants and children, from exposure to chemicals that are harmful to human health.”

Public and environmental health advocates saw it differently, saying chlorpyrifos should not be allowed at all, given scientific research showing it has neurotoxic and endocrine disrupting effects, particularly on the developing children of pregnant women.

winifred-helton-harmon-4GIF-BcmZlM-unsplash

November 22, 2024

Court deals setback to efforts to regulate pesticide-coated seeds

By Carey Gillam

A federal court this week dealt a blow to calls for new regulations on pesticide-coated seeds used in farming, ruling that US regulators were not acting improperly in exempting the seeds from registration review.

The US District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday granted a summary judgment in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and agrochemical industry lobbyist CropLife America, turning back arguments by the Center for Food Safety and other environmental advocates who have spent years warning of a range of “devastating effects” they say result from widespread use of the specialty seeds.

The concerns addressed in the case focus on seeds that are coated in insecticides before they are planted. Three specific types of insecticides that are part of a class of chemicals known as neonicotinoids present particular threats to beneficial birds and insects such as butterflies, and can contaminate the air, soil and water with toxins, according to critics.

The court case ruled on this week focused on three types of neonics – imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, and clothianidin.

“Neonicotinoid treated seeds are used on at least half of all croplands in the US but pose an extreme danger to birds, bees, and other pollinators,” the Center for Food Safety said in a statement issued Thursday following the ruling. “With the future of agriculture and entire food webs on the line, it is irresponsible and unlawful that these pesticides will continue to be exempted from registration.”

The European Union has banned the outdoor use of certain types of neonicotinoids, also called neonics, and the United Nations has said neonics are so hazardous that they should be “severely” restricted. But in the US, neonics remain widely used, typically as coatings on corn, cotton and soybean seeds, planted by farmers to protect crops from insects and disease.

Scientific research has shown they are contributing to a decline in important pollinators such as honeybees. Environmental advocates say numerous studies show neonics are not necessary.

November 18, 2024

Despite critics, organic farming thrives in heart of US corn country

By Keith Schneider

WEST BEND, Iowa – People searching for ways to limit the toll industrialized American agriculture takes on communities, land, and water may want to make a visit to Clear Creek Acres in northern Iowa.

With just shy of 800 residents, West Bend, Iowa is barely a blip on a prairie landscape, but it has become home base for an uncommonly large expanse of organically grown crops- operations that have found success in challenging the popular convention that pesticides and other agricultural chemicals are needed to feed the world.

Towering grain bins are surrounded by close to 50,000 acres of corn, soybeans, oats and other crops grown without the use of synthetic chemicals. Farmers fertilize the land with chicken litter and hog manure and weed much of the land by hand, or with non-chemical tools, such as new laser weeders.

What’s occurred here since 1998, when farmer Barry Fehr experimented with raising chemical-free soybeans on 45 acres, is the development of the most expansive and profitable area of organic grain production in Iowa, and possibly the United States. Most of the land is farmed by multiple generations of the Fehr family. The family also manages about 3,000 organic acres in Colorado. Generating millions of dollars annually in a “sustainable income,” the success of the organic operations here in the heart of corn country defies long-held conventions about a need for chemicals in farming.

The agrochemical industry, led by Monsanto-owner Bayer, Syngenta and other global seed and chemical giants, maintains that weed killers, insecticides and other pesticides are essential to robust food production, and that a growing global population requires use of the chemicals in agriculture.

But 71-year-old Dan Fehr, who has been farming more than 50 years, says “that is debatable.”

The Fehr family farms are nearly matching the yields of crops grown conventionally, perhaps seeing only about a 10% yield decline in comparison, Fehr said. Their costs are lower because they’re not buying pesticides and the high-priced genetically modified seeds designed to be used with certain weed killing pesticides.

And the prices they reap are higher because organic crops command premiums in a marketplace where consumer demand for organic foods is climbing. About 25,000 acres of the Fehr farms in Iowa generate approximately $40 million a year in crop sales.

“The premium we got from selling organics is the key reason,” said Fehr. “The demand for organic has definitely grown a lot. That is why we do it.”

And, he added – “Nobody has died of not using pesticides. I don’t think it will hurt anything not to use pesticides.”

November 1, 2024

US Congress members call on EPA to ban paraquat, citing risk of Parkinson’s and other diseases

By Carey Gillam

More than 50 US lawmakers are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to join dozens of other nations in banning a widely used weed killer linked to Parkinson’s disease and other health dangers.

In an Oct 31 letter to the agency, seven US senators said that paraquat, a weed killer commonly applied on US farms, was a “highly toxic pesticide whose continued use cannot be justified given its harms to farmworkers and rural communities.” The call for a ban from the senators came after 47 members of the US House of Representatives sent a similar letter to the EPA calling for a ban earlier in October.

The lawmakers cite scientific links between paraquat use and development of Parkinson’s and other “life threatening diseases” as well as “grave impacts on the environment”. The lawmakers note that approximately 70 countries have banned paraquat.

“Numerous studies” have found that paraquat causes “serious health risks for workers who use the substance as well as the surrounding communities,” the lawmakers wrote. “These health risks include a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease, with some studies finding a 64% increase in the likelihood of developing Parkinson’s, non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, thyroid cancer, and other thyroid issues.”

Sen. Cory Booker, organizer of the Senate letter, said the risks of paraquat exposure are “well documented” and that it is “irresponsible” for the EPA to continue to allow its use. “I hope the EPA will follow the science and ban paraquat,” Booker said.

The congressional letters add to mounting pressure on the EPA to remove paraquat from the market.