food

November 3, 2023

Battle brewing over proposed US law that would protect pesticides

By Carey Gillam

Cancer patients are celebrating a string of courtroom victories after juries in three US states recently ordered Germany’s Bayer to pay more than $500 million in damages for failing to warn about the health risks of its Roundup herbicides. But the consumer wins come as proposed federal legislation backed by Bayer and the powerful agricultural industry could limit similar cases from ever going to trial in the future.

Dubbed the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act, the proposed measure would provide sweeping protections for pesticide companies and their products, preempting local governments from implementing restrictions on pesticide use and blocking many of the legal claims that have been plaguing Bayer, according to the American Association for Justice (AAJ) and other critics.

The measure, which was introduced over the summer, has been gaining traction as a potential amendment to the pending Farm Bill. More than 360 agricultural organizations are throwing their support behind the measure, which was introduced by US Reps Dusty Johnson and Jim Costa. Lobbying disclosure records show that Bayer and the industry-funded CropLife America have made passage a top priority.

The new law is needed because pesticides are “paramount to growing our food and keeping communities safe,” according to CropLife.

In response, on Oct. 27, more than 150 US lawmakers signed a letter to the leadership of the House Committee on Agriculture expressing “strong opposition” to the preemption measures, saying they would overturn “decades of precedent” and have a “significant impact” on public safety.

Local laws that could be in jeopardy include many that restrict pesticide use near schools, parks, and playgrounds, and protect drinking water supplies and wildlife. Preemption of state and local authority would additionally “limit accountability for manufacturers who fail to adequately warn consumers about the hazards posed by certain high-risk pesticides,” the letter warns.

Sen. Cory Booker dubbed the legislation “reckless” and “irresponsible” in a press call on Thursday. “People are making this a priority in the upcoming Farm Bill, and frankly to me it is outrageous,” Booker said.

2023-10 Farm Bureau KSchneider-00455-Edit-2500

November 1, 2023

“What we’re up against” – North Dakota towns fight Farm Bureau to try to keep water clean

By Keith Schneider

DEVILS LAKE, ND – When Clark Steinhaus first heard about a plan to build a feeding operation for 2,499 hogs near the shoreline of North Dakota’s largest natural lake, he was alarmed. As chair of Pelican Township’s board of supervisors, Steinhaus worried the manure generated by so many hogs could easily contaminate area waterways, including 160,000-acre Devils Lake and its 375 miles of shoreline.

His concerns were not surprising given the fact that each year, US industrial-scale feeding facilities – the standard for American meat and dairy production – generate, store, and spread millions of gallons of untreated liquid feces and urine across farmland. Mammoth dairy, hog, poultry, and beef cattle operations are notorious across Corn Belt states for fouling the air with rank odors and contaminating surface and groundwater with toxic nitrates, phosphorus, and bacteria.

“We got documentation from the pig boys’ engineers that said they’re going to build a 12-foot deep pit under the facility – four-inch concrete, no rebar, only wire mesh. No rubber lining,” said Steinhaus. “They were going to store millions of gallons of manure in that pit. Yeah. Water pollution is a concern here.”

The three-member Pelican Township board unanimously rejected the construction permit application in 2019, deciding it did not meet requirements of the applicable zoning ordinance.

The seemingly straight-forward decision on behalf of a tiny township that is home to only 23 residents came back to haunt Steinhaus, miring the township in litigation and dragging it into a sweeping campaign by the American Farm Bureau Federation to upend local zoning rules that aim to curtail industrial-sized animal agriculture across the United States.

The North Dakota Farm Bureau’s lawsuit against Pelican Township was one of three such lawsuits filed in North Dakota, and among many brought across US farm country as the Farm Bureau levers the courts, legislatures and elected leaders to impede regulation of large-scaled animal agriculture and the foul odors and mammoth waste stream that results.

Five years into its livestock expansion campaign, the Farm Bureau is steadily peeling away important state statutes that make this possible.

“Look at what we are up against,” said Steinhaus. “We have 23 residents in Pelican Township – 23 people live here. We were selling tickets to raffle for cash to pay our lawyers.”

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.

October 11, 2023

Young brains appear at risk from exposure to popular weed killers

By Carey Gillam

Exposure to two widely used weed killers could be harming the brain function of young people, impacting their memory and learning abilities, according to a study published Wednesday.

The study looked specifically at glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide and scores of other brands, and also at 2,4-D – a long-used, weed killing chemical that has seen a surge in use in recent years and has increasingly been combined with glyphosate to kill tenacious weeds.

Concerns about impaired brain function were associated with both chemicals, particularly with 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), according to the study, which was led by researchers at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

“This herbicide (2,4-D) has gone mostly under the radar and more studies aimed at understanding the health effect of herbicide exposures are needed,” said Jose Ricardo Suarez, director of the Climate and Environmental Health Research Program at the University of California San Diego.

“This builds on the growing knowledge that not just insecticides – pesticides that are designed to be neurotoxins – can affect brain processes,” Suarez said. The study showed that as herbicide exposures increased, neurobehavioral performance decreased, he said.

The researchers analyzed urine samples taken from 519 young people ages 11-17 who lived in farming communities in Ecuador where herbicides and other pesticides were sprayed. They then assessed the neurobehavioral performance of the youth, testing them on their attention/inhibitory control, memory/learning, language, visuospatial processing, and social perception.

Glyphosate was detected in the urine of 98.3% of the study participants and 2,4-D in 66.2%. Glyphosate was associated with problems with social perception, while 2,4-D was associated with attention/inhibition, language and memory/learning skills.

September 13, 2023

Could farm fertilizers be driving Corn Belt cancers?

By Keith Schneider

BERNE, Minn. – It was a hot afternoon in mid-July and 60-year-old Brian Bennerotte was making a pilgrimage of sorts, navigating a shotgun-straight, gravel road south of Minneapolis on a journey through a landscape stitched with crop and livestock farms as far as the eye can see.

Bennerotte is one of only three surviving members of a family who farmed for three generations along a mile-long stretch of County Road B. As a long-haul truck driver, Bennerotte rarely gets back here. But with a visitor at his side, he finds his way.

From the passenger seat of a rented vehicle he scans both sides of the road, then points to a dust-scoured barn leaning into the wind. The building is all that remains of his family’s farmstead, which once encompassed 200 acres and a home large enough for Bennerotte’s parents to raise five boys and a girl.

Down the road a bit further, he recognizes neighboring properties: There is the Glarner farm, and the Spreiter farm and the Serie farm. All are connected by circumstances of geography, topography, agriculture, and social commerce.

All are also joined by disease and death.

Among the four families who lived for decades along County Road B, 12 people developed cancer and seven died. Bennerotte was one of three people who developed lymphoma. The disease nearly killed him in 1983 when he was 20 years old. His father and three brothers would not survive their own bouts with cancer.

For some, County Road B has a different name: They call it Cancer Road.

“Every family along here was affected. Every one,” said Bennerotte.

August 25, 2023

Advising farmers on fertilizer, universities add to water pollution woes

By Keith Schneider

WINONA, Minn. – Corn drapes every curve and rise here in Winona County, Minnesota – seemingly endless fields of grain that contribute to the food, fuel and finances of a robust US agricultural economy.

But the bucolic landscape belies a dark and dangerous truth: Much of the groundwater in the porous limestone beneath this area of southeast Minnesota is contaminated with some of the nation’s highest levels of nitrates – harmful pollutants released into the environment by the use of nitrogen chemicals and livestock manure as fertilizer on farmland.

Close to 200 wells in the county have been contaminated with nitrates at levels higher than what is considered safe, according to state officials and in parts of Winona County, half of all households have nitrate-contaminated drinking water. It’s frightening data for area residents because nitrates are linked to a range of health problems, including heart and lung problems and certain cancers. Nitrates are known to be particularly dangerous for babies.

Crop and livestock production accounts for roughly 70% of the state’s nitrate pollution, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, a fact that recently led a coalition of 11 state and national environmental groups to petition federal regulators to investigate.

The groups are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect residents of Winona and seven other southeast Minnesota counties from “imminent and substantial endangerment” caused by nitrate contamination. The agency’s regional office has begun to interview state officials.

The issue is not unique to Minnesota. State and federal data show that since 1990, nitrogen spread on fields in ten major US corn-growing states has increased 26%, with more nitrogen than ever pouring off the land and into US waters.

August 11, 2023

“Polluter pays” debate heats up over toxic PFAS chemical cleanup plan

By Carey Gillam
As US regulators work to tackle the toxic threat posed by a class of widely used chemicals known as PFAS, debate is heating up over who could – and should – get hit with the cleanup costs.

Over the last several weeks, federal officials have received an onslaught of conflicting calls for action regarding a proposal to designate certain types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as “hazardous substances” under the nation’s so-called “Superfund” law. The designation would provide a pathway for the remediation of dangerously contaminated sites around the United States, including assigning liability for the hazardous waste cleanup.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is specifically proposing that PFOA and PFOS and seven other types of PFAS be designated for action under the Superfund law, known formally as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).

The public comment period on the EPA’s proposal ended Friday, drawing fevered pleas from individuals, industries and agencies across the country.

It is the issue of potential liability for PFAS contamination under CERCLA that is sparking fierce debate, as an array of parties, including water providers, landfill operators and even farmers, say they worry they could be saddled with millions of dollars in costs to try to rid their operations of widespread PFAS contamination that they had no hand in creating. They want the EPA and members of Congress to carve out exemptions to protect them.

July 26, 2023

Postcard from California: In climate crisis, farmworkers need more protection from heat

It’s been over 20 years since a 24-year-old migrant farmworker named Constantino Cruz collapsed and died following a nine-hour shift picking tomatoes in 107-degree Fahrenheit heat near Bakersfield, California.

Cruz spent four days in the hospital before dying on July 31, 2005. He was the fourth California farmworker to die of heat related illness that month.

Cruz’s death helped spur then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to issue emergency regulations requiring that on hot days agricultural employers must make sure farmworkers get plenty of water, ready access to shade and rest breaks. The emergency measures were later codified into the first US state law mandating heat protections for farmworkers and other outdoor workers.

Arturo Rodriquez, who at that time was president of the United Farm Workers (UFW), told the Los Angeles Times: “It is tragic that so many farmworkers had to die before action was taken.”

But since California’s landmark action, only three states – Colorado, Oregon and Washington – have passed similar heat safety regulations for farmworkers, and there are no federal safety rules for farmworkers or others who must toil under the sun, meaning most US farmworkers lack legal protection from heat.

The problem is not going away. Average temperatures in the San Joaquin Valley in California are projected to rise by as much as 5 degrees by 2050. And in crop-growing counties across the nation, the number of days considered unsafe because of heat is forecast to nearly double by 2050, according to a University of Washington study.

July 24, 2023

Reporting project examines the scandal of US farm pollution

By Keith Schneider

There’s no way to describe farm-related nutrient pollution other than what it is – a national scandal.

A tiny minority of Americans, half of one percent, is grossly fouling the waters for tens of millions of others. Corn Belt crop farmers, and livestock and poultry producers – the heart of the rich and powerful $618 billion American farm sector – have virtually unlimited opportunities within state and federal law to pollute at will.

Crop producers, unregulated under the Clean Water Act, seek maximum production with no restriction on how much fertilizer they apply. Livestock and poultry producers, barely covered by the clean water law, treat farm fields as waste disposal zones for an ocean of untreated liquid manure and a mountain range of solid manure and poultry litter ripe with E.coli and other hazardous microorganisms. Polluting farm production practices, mostly overlooked by state environment departments, are defended by trade associations with lobbying offices in state capitals and allies from both parties in state legislatures and in Congress.

Since January I’ve been reporting the causes, consequences, and solutions to the farm sector’s assault on American waters with financial support from the Alicia Patterson Foundation, which also helped me secure a second grant from The Fund For Investigative Journalism. See the latest story here.

The project focuses on nitrate pollution in the Corn Belt and builds on expertise I gained reporting in 2022 for Circle of Blue on phosphorus pollution in Michigan and the Great Lakes states. Early reports from this year’s project have already been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Lede, Circle of Blue, Minnpost, Investigate Midwest, Detroit Now, Michigan Radio, and my ModeShift blog.

To some extent, the tide of toxic nitrogen and phosphorus discharges from crop land and livestock operations is a well-recognized story not only in media, but also in government. Addressing it has resulted in an unsteady platform of responses over the last three decades held up by two of three legs.

The first is the considerable investment by states and the federal government in science. Billions of dollars have been spent on research and nutrient monitoring. America knows with great clarity the sources of nutrient contamination and the environmental, health, and economic damage it causes.

May 24, 2023

In Iowa, a tale of politics, power, and contaminated water

By Keith Schneider

IOWA CITY, IOWA – Here in the heart of US farm country, the wretched quality of Iowa waterways is a well-known lament. Farm fields laden with synthetic fertilizers and manure produce bounties of over 2 billion bushels of corn each year, but those same fields also produce a torrent of run-off that contaminates virtually every mile of the state’s streams and rivers and every acre of lakes and ponds.

For Iowa’s farm sector and its powerful political allies, the dire public and environmental consequences are perhaps unfortunate, but acceptable, outcomes of modern, large-scale agriculture – and, importantly, a topic best kept out of the spotlight.

Advocates for solutions to farm-related water contamination recently found out just how difficult it can be to try to shine a light on the problems. Over the last few months, a campaign of political bullying, academic intimidation, and information repression has roiled the state, offering a rare and vivid illustration of the power the agricultural industry can wield to silence challengers and to evade responsibility for it mammoth waste stream.

“It’s not working for Iowans,” said David Cwiertney, director of the Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination at the University of Iowa. “We’re not changing behavior in agriculture. We don’t spend enough time thinking about the damage we’re causing to people here in Iowa, to water quality impacts.”

The Iowa saga began in March when two senior Republican state lawmakers decided a state water quality researcher, who was tracking and mapping water quality problems and writing a blog about agriculture’s culpability, was getting a little too much attention.

Sen. Dan Zumbach, the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Sen. Tom Shipley, chair of the Senate Ethics Committee, reportedly told a lobbyist for the University of Iowa that they wanted to silence the researcher’s widely read, university-sponsored blog because of its aggressive reporting on farm-related water contamination. [cg1] The author of the blog was Chris Jones, a 62-year-old chemist and research engineer at the University of Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research (IIHR).

Jones warned in his blog that strategies to reduce harmful run-off of farm fertilizers and other nutrients were not effective. As head of the Iowa Water Quality Information System since 2015, Jones backed his warnings with data; data he said made it clear that the state’s increasingly intensive industrial farm practices were pouring more nutrients into Iowa’s streams and rivers and water pollution was getting worse.

Within days of the push from the lawmakers, university administrators shut down Jones’ blog and he resigned. Weeks later the state legislature voted to defund the monitoring network Jones led.