food

July 24, 2024

PFAS increasingly added to pesticides, study finds

By Shannon Kelleher

Despite widespread alarm about the health and environmental impacts of toxic PFAS, the chemicals are increasingly being added to pesticides applied in homes and crops across the US, according to a new study.

The findings, published July 24 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, add to growing concerns about PFAS contamination in the US food system and waterways and highlight pesticides’ “underappreciated” role in the problem, said David Andrews, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group and an author of the study

The study revealed that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) account for 14% of all active ingredients in pesticides used in the US, including almost one-third of active ingredients approved in the last decade. Even when PFAS are not intentionally added to these products, the fluorinated containers in which they are stored have been found to leach PFAS into their contents, the study concluded.

“This is truly frightening news, because pesticides are some of the most widely dispersed pollutants in the world,” Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity and an author of the study, said in a statement. “Lacing pesticides with forever chemicals is likely burdening the next generation with more chronic diseases and impossible cleanup responsibilities.”

The authors reviewed pesticide data from the US EPA, the US Geological Survey, and the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency, as well as publicly available databases, finding that PFAS-laced pesticides are regularly used nationwide on staple crops including corn, wheat, kale, spinach, apples and strawberries. PFAS are also common ingredients in flea treatments for pets and sprays to kill insects, they found.

The study comes on the heels of a petition delivered to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday by the Center for Food Safety and other nonprofits, asking the agency to ban PFAS in pesticides.

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

Congress should follow science and reject Bayer push to block lawsuits

By Nathan Donley

Millions of American users of glyphosate-based Roundup have likely assumed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would never have approved the pesticide unless it was safe.

But the science-based truth has never been as cut and dried as the EPA and Bayer, which bought Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018, have made it sound. In a series of trials across the country, juries – and the public – have learned that despite the safety claims by Bayer and the EPA, hundreds of studies by independent scientists link glyphosate herbicides to serious health harms, including cancer.

Even though Bayer maintains that its glyphosate products are safe and not carcinogenic, the company has thus far agreed to pay out more than $10 billion in settlement costs to tens of thousands of glyphosate users suffering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), and thousands of lawsuits remain.

In an effort to block further litigation, the chemical giant has turned its focus to getting federal and state legislation passed to block Roundup users from suing the company for damages. According to a recent Washington Post article, Bayer helped draft language for a legislative measure that would limit the types of lawsuits brought by the Roundup users. That measure is included in the US House of Representatives version of the 2024 Farm Bill, which is slated to be finalized later this year. The company has also been pushing lawmakers in several states to pass similar measures.

Key to Bayer’s messaging to legislators is that, because glyphosate is EPA-approved, research showing its harms should be rejected. But the process by which the EPA approved glyphosate decades ago has never been reassuring to independent scientists such as myself.

July 10, 2024

In bid to slash chemical use, robots take on farm fields

By Carey Gillam

Cheney, Kan. – On a sweltering summer day in central Kansas, farm fields shimmer in the heat as Clint Brauer watches a team of bright yellow robots churn up and down the rows, tirelessly slicing away any weeds that stand in their way while avoiding the growing crops.

The battery-powered machines, four feet long and two feet wide, pick their way through the fields with precision. Programmed with myriad data points about the field, the artificial intelligence (AI)-driven bots run without any human hand to guide them.

Brauer, a former California-based tech executive who moved back to his family farm in central Kansas after his father developed Parkinson’s disease, sees the robots as critical tools to help farmers reduce their reliance on chemicals and be more protective of their health and the environment.

His Greenfield agricultural technology company now builds and programs its robots in a shed behind an old farmhouse where his grandmother once lived. Farmers who hire the robots are charged a flat rate per acre weeded. Twenty farmers are signed up for the robotic services this season, and the company hopes to weed 10,000 acres this year.

“The answer is here,” he said. “This solves a lot of problems for farmers.”

Greenfield is one of many agricultural robotic companies springing up amid a confluence of concerns over the future of farming. Fears about the harmful impacts of farm chemicals on the environment and on public health are key drivers, as is the need to deal with the diminishing effectiveness of overused weed killing chemicals, labor shortages, and the high costs that farmers face with conventional farming practices.

Financial backing is flowing to these companies from venture capital funds, private investors and large food and agricultural companies eager to make bets on the bots as a means to promote more sustainable food production – a notion increasingly finding favor with consumers.

The investment arm of Chipotle Mexican Grill, a global restaurant chain, is among Greenfield’s investors. Christian Gammill, who leads Chipotles venture fund, said Greenfield’s work is “important and impactful.” Greenfield has raised about $12 million in capital, and is seeking more, according to Brauer.

ReGen Ventures, a venture capital fund operating in Australia and the US, has so far sunk $6 million – with more planned – into North Dakota-based Aigen Robotics, which uses AI and camera vision to sense plants and remove weeds while avoiding crops. Aigen declares on its website to be “building a future with no harmful chemicals in our food.” The compact robots are powered via solar panels fixed to the top of each machine and are designed to work autonomously, sleeping and waking up on farms fields.

“They are well on their way to displacing chemicals from ag and enabling a new, regenerative food production system,” said ReGen founder Dan Fitzgerald.

June 12, 2024

Biofuels manufacturing found to be a significant source of hazardous air pollution

By Dana Drugmand

Hazardous air pollutants emitted in the manufacturing of biofuels is nearly as bad as air pollution stemming from oil refineries, and for several types of dangerous pollutants such as formaldehyde the emissions from biofuel production are far greater, a new report finds.

The assessment, which was conducted by researchers with the environmental watchdog group Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), looked at emissions generated by 275 ethanol, biodiesel and renewable diesel facilities in the United States. The researchers found that the facilities frequently violated air pollution permits while at the same time benefiting from legal exemptions and federal policy supports such as fuel-blending mandates.

As the biofuels industry continues expanding with more than 30 new facilities under construction or proposed, the industry should be seen as a threat to public health, the report warns. Stronger regulatory oversight from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is needed, according to EIP.

“Despite its green image, the biofuels industry releases a surprising amount of hazardous air pollution that puts local communities at risk – and this problem is exacerbated by EPA’s lax regulation” Courtney Bernhardt, EIP director of research, said in a statement.

According to the EIP report released on Wednesday, biofuels manufacturing generated 12.9 million pounds of hazardous air pollutants in 2022. That compares to 14.5 million pounds of hazardous air pollutants emitted by oil refineries that year, according to data from EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory.

Emissions from biofuel factories were significantly higher than oil refineries for four types of hazardous pollutants – formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein, and hexane, according to the EIP report. In 2022, biofuel facilities reported releases of nearly 7.7 million pounds of hexane, over 2.1 million pounds of acetaldehyde, 235,125 pounds of formaldehyde, and 357,564 pounds of acrolein. By comparison, oil refineries that year emitted 2.6 million pounds of hexane, 10,420 pounds of acetaldehyde, 67,774 pounds of formaldehyde, and zero pounds of acrolein.

May 16, 2024

New hope for long-polluted communities, but skepticism of Superfund success remains

By Barbara Reina and Carey Gillam

Jackie Medcalf was a teenager when she moved with her family to a small farm near the San Jacinto River in Harris County, Texas. It felt like a good life, playing in the river and “eating off the land,” as Medcalf describes it.

But the animals quickly grew ill, as did Medcalf, suffering a range of health problems. Her father developed multiple myeloma at the age of 51. Tests of the family’s well water would later reveal contamination with several toxic metals. Testing of the eggs collected from the family’s chickens also found an array of heavy metals. The family was not alone, as others in the area reported similar problems.

There was little doubt about the source of the contamination: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has designated the San Jacinto River Waste Pits as a Superfund site due to dumping in the 1960s of waste from a paper mill containing carcinogens and other types of toxins. The site has been on the EPA’s “National Priorities List” for cleanup since 2008. But 14 years later, those efforts have yet to be completed.

“For decades my fellow community members have unknowingly recreated around dioxin laden pits,” said Medcalf, now a 37-year-oldmother and the founder of a nonprofit that advocates for the cleanup of area’s contamination. “How many more decades must pass before this disaster is remedied?”

The suffering of the Medcalf family is but one story among far too many that are emblematic of the struggles behind America’s Superfund program, which aims to clean up sites around the country contaminated with a range of dangerous industrial toxins.

In February, the Biden administration said it was earmarking more than $1 billion to help clean up those long-standing hazardous waste sites that are jeopardizing the health of communities around the country. The money is to go to new and continuing projects, and is part of roughly $3.5 billion allocated in President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for work at Superfund sites.

May 13, 2024

Corrupt politics, not science, power the US EPA

By Evaggelos Vallianatos

When I started my job in the Office of Pesticide Programs at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1979, many things quickly surprised and disappointed me – a pattern that persisted through my 25-year career there.

The first thing that astonished me was the scandal that came to light with the giant Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories (IBT). People would whisper in the corridors about fake lab studies. They would wonder aloud about the safety of our food. IBT was the country’s largest testing lab for drugs and pesticides, conducting toxicology studies for companies such as Monsanto until investigators discovered widespread fraudulent manipulation of test data. The US Department of Justice successfully prosecuted multiple IBT officials for fraud, and has caught others who similarly engaged in fraud to ensure approvals for risky products.

I learned the IBT story from Adrian Gross, a colleague in the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs. (Gross died in 1992.) We spent hours talking about the science and political corruption that often accompany the regulation of pesticides. Gross would speak of “cut-and-paste” science, in which studies the EPA relied on included passages simply copied from materials developed by the companies seeking approval to sell their risky products.

Over the time I worked at the EPA, I became convinced that the agency was serving industry much more than the public. My attempts to discuss concerns with supervisors made no difference, save for intensifying hostility toward me.

May 7, 2024

An Iowa farm county seeks answers amid cancer rates 50% higher than national average

By Keith Schneider

EMMETSBURG, IOWA –Raised in rural Iowa, 71-year-old Maureen Reeves Horsley once considered her tiny hometown in the northwest part of the state to be a blessed space. She recalls a time when the streams here ran clean and the lake water was clear.

The family farm where Horsley grew up was one of more than 1,200 farms in Palo Alto County in 1970. In her memory, the county’s 13,000 residents enjoyed a thriving agricultural-based economy and close-knit neighbors. Cows grazed in verdant pastures. And seemingly endless acres of corn marched to the horizon.

“We had good crops, corn and soybeans,” Horsley said of her family’s farm along the West Fork of the Des Moines River. “You could make it on a small amount of farmland. You felt safe. It was a good life.”

Two generations later Emmetsburg and Palo Alto County have been radically transformed into a place where many residents worry that the farms that have sustained their livelihoods are also the source of the health problems that have plagued so many families.

Horsley, a certified nurse practitioner who still lives in the county, is among many Iowa residents who ask whether the farms that make up the lifeblood of Iowa’s economy have become a source of disease and death due to the toxic chemicals and other pollutants indelibly linked to modern agricultural practices.

“We drank the water on our farm,” Horsley said in an interview. “My sister had breast cancer. She was only 27 when she died. She grew up here. My other sister had uterine cancer. As a nurse practitioner I’m aware of five people now with pancreatic cancer. I know 20 people who have other cancers or died of cancer here. Look at the obituaries in our newspaper. Everybody is aware this is going on.”

May 3, 2024

Bayer asks EPA to again approve twice-banned weed killer

After multiple court-ordered bans, Bayer AG is once again asking the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to approve the controversial weed killer dicamba for use on genetically modified crops, the EPA announced this week.

Dicamba has been responsible for millions of acres of damage to crops and natural areas since it was initially approved to be used starting in 2017 on genetically modified (GM) crops altered to withstand being sprayed with the herbicide. Farmers whose crops were not genetically modified suffered the damage, largely because the new uses for dicamba induced farmers to apply it during summer months when the chemical easily volatilized and drifted far from where it was applied.

Before the new use approvals, dicamba was primarily used before the growing season because of its volatility. But after the EPA agreed to industry requests to market dicamba herbicides to farmers for use during warm months on the specialized GM crops, farmers not planting the dicamba-tolerant GM crops registered thousands of complaints across multiple key farming states about dicamba damage.

In its request for fresh approval, Bayer, the German conglomerate that inherited dicamba in its 2018 acquisition of Monsanto, is now asking the EPA for more limits on the weed killer. Bayer is proposing, for example, that dicamba use be not allowed after soybean crops have emerged from the ground or after June 12. However, Bayer’s proposal still allows for cotton to be allowed throughout the summer. The proposal also limits the overall amount of dicamba allowed to be used, compared to previous EPA approvals.

May 3, 2024

US says Mexico ‘abandoned science’ in GM corn limitations

By Johnathan Hettinger

The United States has doubled down on allegations that Mexico is violating international trade rules by working to ban imports of genetically modified (GM) corn for human consumption, arguing in a filing made public this week that Mexico has “abandoned science” in expressing concerns about how GM corn impacts human and environmental health.

Mexico is violating its obligations under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), making “factual and legal errors” in attempting to justify its decision to ban GM corn for use in tortillas and and dough and to gradually move away from the use of GM corn in animal feed, the US said in its formal rebuttal to Mexico’s case.

The 120-page US response, filed with a tribunal charged with arbitrating the trade dispute, said that Mexico has not shown that GM corn is likely to harm humans or native Mexican varieties of corn that are not genetically modified as Mexico has feared.

The US filing comes in response to a 189-page report issued by Mexico explaining the risks it sees posed by GM corn.

For years, Mexico has allowed the import of GM corn in the country, but the administration of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has taken aggressive moves against the import of GM corn and against the use of glyphosate weed killer in the country, citing concerns threats to the health of the Mexican population as well as to the health of the environment. Glyphosate is commonly used by US farmers in growing a wide range of crops, and is sprayed directly over the tops of growing corn and other crops that have been genetically engineered to withstand the weed killer. In addition to being genetically altered to withstand herbicides, GM corn has also been engineered to manufacture its own toxin to repel insects.

“Mexico has legitimate concerns about the safety and innocuousness of genetically modified corn… and its indissoluble relationship with its technological package that includes glyphosate,” the government’s report states. There is “clear scientific evidence of the harmful effects of direct consumption of GM corn grain in corn flour, dough, tortilla and related products,” Mexico stated. More evidence is needed, Mexico says, to determine “whether and to what extent, such risks are transmitted to food products further downstream…”