But it doesn’t have to be this way; farmers know how to feed us. It’s backward government policies that are standing in their way. We need Congress to reevaluate the subsidies provided to big ag, and prioritize farmers growing and raising nutritious food for our nation.

Our taxpayer dollars are propping up some of the largest industrial agriculture operations in the country, allowing the big to get bigger. At the same time, small and mid-sized farms are being driven out of existence. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversubsidizes the production of corn and soybeans, which are used for livestock feed, ethanol, and to create sugars, starches, and oils that end up in highly processed foods. The highly concentrated nature of our food and farm system, facilitated by the government’s prioritization of these commodity crops, has made it increasingly difficult for our farmers to supply us with nutritious food crops like fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. 

The most recently available farm subsidy data shows that the majority of government subsidies go toward commodity crop production, while just four percent go toward fruit and vegetable production, which the USDA ironically deems “specialty crops.” New York fruit grower Chip Kent said he has only ever received $500 in subsidies; meanwhile, a handful of the largest and wealthiest operations are raking in 80 percent of the billions of available dollars. 

“We could use a little help. Who’s gonna grow our food? You really want to buy it all from overseas?” Kent said in a recent CNBC story. 

And that is becoming a reality; according to the USDA, our fruit and vegetable supply is increasingly made up of imports. In 2021, we imported 60 percent of our fresh fruit and 38 percent of our vegetables. In 2019, we imported $15.7 billion worth of produce from Mexico and by 2023, that number increased to $21 billion. 

Our government’s misplaced prioritization of growing and exporting low-value crops, which primarily benefits the corporations dominating our food system, is reflected in America’s public health. As government subsidies support the production of sugars, starches, and oils, prices on those products remain relatively low. Over time, those foods become the most readily accessible and available, and  fresh produce is priced higher and is less accessible. Most of the American population is not consuming enough fruits and vegetables, according to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, which determined that 80 percent of people eat too little fruit and 90 percent do not eat enough vegetables. A 2021 study found that Americans are increasingly consuming ultra-processed food (like frozen pizza, soda, and fast food), with over half of our population’s caloric intake coming from ultra-processed foods.

We are on track to have a trade deficit for five of the last seven years, our public health is at risk, and our fruit and vegetable farmers are struggling to stay afloat. The ability to reverse these harmful trends is in the hands of our government. To begin to undo this damage, the next farm bill must better support those farmers who are providing nutritious food for our people. 

It’s worth noting that the soybean industry, which receives substantially more government support, has an industry value estimated at 20 percent lower than that of fruits and vegetables. Farm Action’s research determined that by shifting less than 0.5 percent of current farm acreage to fruit and vegetable production, we could balance the 2023 agriculture trade deficit of $32 billion due to the higher value of food crops. 

We must stop outsourcing what we can grow ourselves; a different way is possible, and a healthy, sustainable food system is attainable. With the next farm bill still up in the air, Farm Action will continue advocating for Congress to shift resources and infrastructure to the production of food for our communities — to the benefit of America’s food security, public health, and farmers. 

Angela Huffman is a co-founder and president of Farm Action. She has over a decade of experience in food and agriculture policy reform and market development.

The post Opinion: The US Doesn’t Grow Enough Food – But We Could appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Each year, about one in six Americans falls ill to foodborne illnesses, and oversight agencies have routinely found that the U.S. food safety system — a shared responsibility of the FDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and several others — falls short.

In 2017, the Government Accountability Office called for a unified strategy to address food safety, as no less than eight different federal departments had a hand in fortifying the nation’s food. And in 2018, the GAO criticized the USDA for not doing enough to keep foodborne pathogens out of the nation’s meat supply.

In 2021, ProPublica found that the USDA knew of an ongoing salmonella outbreak but had allowed contaminated meat to continue to be sold.

Generally, the USDA inspects meat and poultry, and it sometimes has inspectors stationed inside large meat processing plants. The FDA inspects fruits, vegetables, dairy products and processed foods — about 80% of the food supply. It also inspects food overseas that will be imported to the U.S.

“Given the large number of food facilities and the agency’s limited resources, meeting the existing inspection mandates has been challenging for the agency,” the FDA told the GAO. However, the “FDA is excited for the work underway” at the agency to address food safety.

In October 2024, the FDA announced it was implementing a near agency-wide reorganization that it said would help it better oversee the nation’s food supply.

The reorganization was prompted, in part, by the FDA’s delayed response to a whistleblower complaint about infant formula produced at an Abbott Nutrition factory. Despite receiving the complaint, the agency took no action for 15 months, during which time several infants fell ill after consuming the contaminated formula.

In its announcement, the FDA said it was “focused on transforming the agency to be more efficient, nimble and ready for the future.”

COVID-19 inhibited inspections

The FDA is required to inspect about 75,000 food facilities in the U.S. each year, according to the GAO’s report, published Jan. 8. However, between 2018 and 2023, the latest year data is available, it failed to perform the number of inspections mandated by the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act.

One reason the FDA fell behind was the COVID-19 pandemic. It affected the agency’s ability to conduct in-person inspections (as it did for other agencies, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration).

The year of the pandemic, the FDA only inspected 7% of facilities identified as “high-risk” for foodborne illnesses, according to the GAO. The number increased to about half the following years.

Still, the pandemic created a significant backlog, which the agency is still dealing with, the GAO said.

“While it is unclear when FDA will be able to clear the backlog of past due inspections created during the pandemic, FDA officials told us they are taking steps to address it,” the watchdog said in its report.

Inspection gaps, staffing challenges

Another challenge is the lack of experienced inspectors. As of 2024, the agency had 432 inspectors, which the GAO said was 90% its full capacity.

As of mid-2024, a quarter of FDA food inspectors were eligible for retirement, and more will be eligible by summer 2025. (The GAO report does not say how many retired.) The FDA is hiring new staff, but “the hiring rate has not outpaced losses,” the GAO reported.

When a foodborne illness outbreak does occur, FDA inspectors must focus their attention on the outbreak. But that adds to the backlog of regular inspections, the GAO said: Prioritizing outbreaks “directly affects” the agency’s ability to conduct inspections that might prevent outbreaks.

Adding to the workforce issue is that it takes about two years to train a new food inspector.

The FDA said it had stepped up efforts to recruit qualified inspectors, including offering student loan reimbursements.

“While these actions represent positive steps,” the GAO said, “FDA continues to face long-standing and significant workforce capacity challenges.”

The USDA has also struggled to hire and retain food safety inspectors. Even before the pandemic — when meat processing plants were known COVID-19 hotspots — agency employees reported feeling burned out with heavy workloads, Investigate Midwest reported in 2019.

For instance, due to low staffing, one USDA food inspector, at eight months pregnant, was working double shifts.

Too few overseas inspections

The FDA is required to perform about 19,000 food safety inspections overseas each year, as the U.S. imports many foods consumers want year-round, such as bananas. It also did not meet this threshold, averaging just 5% of the required figure between 2018 and 2023.

The FDA told the GAO that the required number of foreign inspections was unrealistic. As of mid-2024, just 20 employees were dedicated to foreign inspections.

In 2015, the GAO recommended the FDA determine a reasonable target for foreign inspections. Responding to this latest GAO report, the FDA said it would not do so.

“FDA officials told us in August 2024 — nearly 10 years after we made our recommendation — that they do not intend to take any further action to address it,” the GAO said. “We maintain that identifying an appropriate annual target for conducting foreign inspections and using it to assess FDA’s performance in safeguarding imported food is important.”

This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Their mission is to serve the public interest by exposing dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism. Visit them online at www.investigatemidwest.org

The post As Foodborne Illnesses Sicken Tens of Millions Each Year, FDA Falls Behind on Mandated Inspections appeared first on Modern Farmer.

However, over the years, it’s become clear that malathion isn’t always safe for use, and, even if no humans are negatively impacted by it on a case-by-case basis, it’s much more likely to negatively impact unintended critters or plants, some of which might be endangered. Malathion remains on the market in the US (the United Kingdom withdrew malathion for sale in 2002 due to safety concerns), but some organizations are pushing back, citing the pesticide’s murky history and evidence that malathion isn’t as safe as you might want to believe.

On September 9, 2024, the Center for Biological Diversity, an organization dedicated to protecting endangered species from human impact, sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for “failing to adequately protect more than 1,500 species of wildlife and plants from the insecticide malathion—in violation of the Endangered Species Act.” This came after years of back-and-forth on malathion’s safety. 

In 2017, scientists within the USFWS found that a single exposure to malathion “could be catastrophic” and that repeated use of the insecticide could eliminate entire populations of endangered species in particular areas. However, their findings went nowhere after that scientific determination was reversed by then-Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, which delayed the finalization of the biological opinion by five years. 

Fast forward to 2022, and the USFWS changed its tone: This time, it finalized its biological opinion on malathion and concluded that the pesticide does not pose an extinction risk to a single protected species of wildlife or plant in the United States. There’s very little to explain why such a drastic difference in findings would occur over such a short timespan. 

Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director for the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), says that, despite the shift from the USFWS, the CBD remains steadfast that malathion is harmful. “Malathion belongs to an old class of pesticides called organophosphates. Organophosphates are potent neurotoxins associated with a suite of risks to human health, including death,” says Burd. “Farmworkers suffer disproportionate exposure to pesticides, including malathion. But others can also suffer substantial exposures, including people who spray malathion for landscaping, golf courses and mosquito control; people who live in areas where malathion is frequently used for mosquito control, and workers in factories where malathion is produced.” 

A glance back in time through malathion incident reports finds concerning stories from the 1980s and ’90s. In California, malathion was the third most common cause of pesticide-related illness from 1981 to 1985, especially among applicators exposed during indoor application, usually due to inhalation of fumes. Malathion is second on the list of active ingredients thought to be responsible for the largest number of acute occupational pesticide-related illnesses, using 1999 data. One incident report recounts the time a young girl ran across a lawn five hours after the application of malathion; she was left with blisters on her feet for months afterwards. Another incident from 1995 finds that a worker installing a door was exposed to malathion sprayed by the property owner; he was hospitalized for days with dysarthria, nausea, and vomiting. 

In fairness, malathion is generally safe enough for humans—usually. Malathion is of low toxicity to humans, but absorption or ingestion into the human body metabolizes malathion into malaoxon, which is substantially more dangerous. Symptoms of malaoxon toxicity can onset within minutes to hours after exposure, and can result in minor concerns such as allergic reactions or skin rashes to nervous system impacts, seizures, loss of consciousness, and even death. Even low levels of exposure can lead to these effects.  The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends that workers not be exposed to more than 10 mg/m³ of malathion for a 10-hour workday, 40 hours per workweek. NIOSH also recommends that a level of 250 mg/m³ of malathion in the air be considered as immediately dangerous to life and health.

How can one stay protected from potential malathion toxicity? It’s important to use protective equipment when applying malathion, including gloves, rubber boots, a mask covering the nose and mouth, and eyewear. Even when wearing gloves, it’s important to thoroughly wash your hands afterwards. Windows should stay closed to prevent vapors from entering your house. Similarly, remember that anything you spray has the potential to cause harm; remove pet bowls, children’s toys, or anything else that might unknowingly harbor malathion. However, it’s important to consider others when choosing your pesticide; if you are unable to limit the exposure of others, such as neighborhood kids or dogwalkers, you may want to reconsider using a pesticide believed by many, and evidenced by many incident reports, to cause serious harm.

Malathion is, like most other insecticides, indiscriminate in who it kills; that means that endangered species that come in contact with it are likely to die. These species include the Karner blue butterfly, rusty-patched bumble bee, Indiana bat, northern long-eared bat, American burying beetle, lesser prairie-chicken, and many plant species. Bat species may actually be at an increased risk, as they may feed on mosquitoes sprayed with malathion before they succumb. Similarly, feral cats, or outdoor cats and dogs, might interact with objects sprayed by malathion, or eat insects or small animals that are contaminated. 

The government’s reply to the lawsuit is due by the end of January, and the incoming Trump administration could be a factor in how it proceeds. “The election could certainly lead to changes in how the government chooses to defend itself in the case, but we still feel confident in the strength of our claims,” says Burd. 

“The Fish and Wildlife Service submitted to the pesticide industry’s demands and hung more than 1,500 endangered species out to dry by failing to rein in malathion use in their habitats,” said Burd in a release regarding the CBD lawsuit. “Today, these animals and plants continue to be harmed by one of the worst neurotoxic pesticides on the market, which can be sprayed in the last few homes of some of our most imperiled species. That includes nearly every endangered butterfly, beetle and dragonfly we have. We just can’t let this go on.” 

The post Why One Group is Suing the Government Over Malathion, a Dangerous Pesticide appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Helene and Milton, the two massive hurricanes that just swept into the country — killing hundreds of people, and leaving both devastation and rumblings of political upheaval in seven states — amounted to their own October surprise. Not that the storms led to some irredeemable gaffe or unveiled some salacious scandal. The surprise, really, may be that not even the hurricanes have pushed concerns about climate change more toward the center of the presidential campaign.

With early voting already underway and two weeks before Election Day, when voters will decide between Vice President Kamala Harris, who has called climate change an “existential threat,” and former President Donald Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax,” Grist’s editorial staff presents a climate-focused voter’s guide — a package of analyses and predictions about what the next four years may bring from the White House, depending on who wins.

The next administration will be decisive for the country’s progress on critical climate goals. By 2030, just a year after the next president would leave office, the U.S. has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels, and expects to supply up to 13 million electric vehicles annually. A little further down the line, though no less critical, the country’s climate goals include reaching 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035 and achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.

As you gear up to vote, here are 15 ways that Harris’ and Trump’s climate- and environment-related policies could affect your life — along with some information to help inform your vote.

Your energy mix

Over the last year or so, utility companies across the country have woken up to a new reality: After two decades of flat growth, electricity demand is about to spike, due to the combined pressures of new data centers, cryptocurrency mining, a manufacturing boom, and the electrification of buildings and transportation.

While the next president will not directly decide how the states supply power to their new and varied customers, he or she will oversee the massive system of incentives, subsidies, and loans by which the federal government influences how much utilities meet electricity demand by burning fossil fuels — the crucial question for the climate.

Trump’s answer to that question can perhaps be summed up in the three-word catchphrase he’s deployed on the campaign trail: “Drill, baby, drill.” He is an avowed friend of the fossil fuel industry, from whom he reportedly demanded $1 billion in campaign funds at a fundraising dinner last spring, promising in exchange to gut environmental regulations.

Vice President Harris is not exactly running on a platform of decarbonization, either. In an effort to win swing votes in the shale-boom heartland of Pennsylvania, she has reversed course on her past opposition to fracking, and she has proudly touted the record levels of oil and gas production seen under the current administration. Despite the risk of nuclear waste, the Biden administration has also championed nuclear power as a carbon-free solution and sought to incentivize the construction of new reactors through subsidies and loans. Although Harris says her administration would not be a continuation of Biden’s, it’s reasonable to expect continuity with Biden’s overall approach of leaning more heavily on incentives for low-emissions energy than restrictions on fossil fuels to further a climate agenda.

Your home improvements

In 2022, the Biden administration handed the American people a great big carrot to incentivize them to decarbonize: the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA. It provides thousands of dollars in the form of rebates and tax credits for a consumer to get an EV and electrify their home with solar panels, a heat pump, and an induction stove. (Though the funding available for renters is slim, it is also out there.) In 2023, 3.4 million Americans got $8.4 billion in tax credits for home energy improvements thanks to the IRA.

If elected, Trump has pledged to rescind the remaining funding, which would require the support of Congress. By contrast, Harris has praised the law (which, as vice president, she famously cast the tie-breaking vote to pass) and would almost certainly veto any attempts by Congress to repeal it. As a presidential candidate, she has not said whether she would expand the law, though many expect she would focus on more efficient implementation.

But while repealing the IRA might slow the steady pace of American households decarbonizing, it can’t stop what’s already in motion. “There are fundamental forces here at work,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School. “At the end of the day, there’s very little that Trump can do to stand in the way.”

For one, the feds provide guidance to states on how to distribute the money made available through the IRA. More climate-ambitious states are already layering on their own monetary incentives to decarbonize. So even if that IRA money disappeared, states could pick up the slack.

And two, even before the IRA passed, market forces were setting clean energy on a path to replace fossil fuels. The price of solar power dropped by 90 percent between 2010 and 2020. And like any technology, electric appliances will only get cheaper and better. It might take longer without further support from the federal government, but the American home of tomorrow is, inevitably, fully electric — no matter the next administration.

 

Matt Simon, Senior staff writer focusing on climate solutions

Your home insurance premiums

Whether they know it or not, many Americans are already confronting the costs of a warming world in their monthly bills: In recent years, home insurance premiums have risen in almost every state, as insurance companies face the fallout of larger and more damaging hurricanes, wildfires, and hailstorms. In some states, like Florida and California, many prominent companies have fled the market altogether. While some Democrats have proposed legislation that would create a federal backstop for these failing insurance markets — with the goal of ensuring that coverage remains available for most homeowners — these proposals have yet to make much headway in a divided Congress. For the moment, it’s state governments, rather than the president or any other national politicians, that have real jurisdiction over homeowner’s insurance prices.

Near the end of the presidential debate in September, when both candidates were asked about what they’d do to “fight climate change,” Harris began her response by referring to “anyone who lives in a state who has experienced these extreme weather occurrences, who now is either being denied home insurance or is being jacked up” as a way to counter Trump’s denials of climate change.

Traditional homeowner policies don’t include flood insurance, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency runs a flood insurance program that serves 5 million homeowners in the U.S., mostly along the East Coast. Homeowners in the most flood-prone areas are required to buy this policy, but uptake has been lagging in some particularly vulnerable inland communities — including those that were recently devastated by Hurricane Helene. Project 2025, which many experts believe will serve as the blueprint to a second Trump term (though his campaign disavows any connection to it), imagines FEMA winding down the program altogether, throwing flood coverage to the private market. This would likely make it cheaper to live in risky areas — but it would leave homeowners without financial support after floods, all but ensuring only the rich could rebuild.

 

Jake Bittle, Staff writer focusing on climate impacts and adaptation

Your transportation

The appetite for infrastructure spending is so bipartisan that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed in 2021, has become more widely known as the bipartisan infrastructure law. But don’t be fooled. A wide gulf separates how Harris and Trump approach transportation, with potentially profound climate implications.

Harris hasn’t offered many specifics, but she has committed to advancing the rollout out of the Biden administration’s infrastructure agenda. That includes traditional efforts like building roads and bridges, mixed with Democratic priorities including union labor and an eye toward climate-resilience. The infrastructure law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act include billions in spending to promote the adoption of electric vehicles, produce them domestically, and add 500,000 charging stations by 2030. They also include greener transportation efforts aimed at, among other things, electrifying buses, enhancing passenger rail, and expanding mass transit. That said, Harris has not called for the eventual elimination of internal combustion vehicles despite such plans in 12 states.

Trump has also been sparse on details about transportation — his website doesn’t address the issue except to decry Chinese ownership. During his first term and 2020 campaign, he championed (though never produced) a $1 trillion infrastructure plan. It focused on building “gleaming” roads, highways, and bridges, and reducing the environmental review and government oversight of such projects. He has favored flipping the federal-first funding model to shift much of the cost onto states, municipalities, and the private sector. Ultimately, Trump seems to have little interest in a transition to low-carbon transportation — the 2024 official Republican platform calls for rolling back EV mandates — and he remains a vocal supporter of fossil fuel production.

 

Tik Root, Senior staff writer focusing on the clean energy transition

Your health

Rising global temperatures and worsening extreme weather are changing the distribution and prevalence of tick- and mosquito-borne diseases, fungal pathogens, and water-borne bacteria across the U.S. State and local health departments rely heavily on data and recommendations on these climate-fueled illnesses from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC — an agency whose director is appointed by the president and can be influenced by the White House.

In his first term, Trump tried to divorce many federal agencies’ research functions from their rulemaking capacities, and there are concerns that, if he wins again in November, Trump would continue that effort. Project 2025, a sweeping blueprint developed by right-wing conservative groups with the aim of influencing a second Trump term, proposes separating the CDC’s disease surveillance efforts from its policy recommendation work, meaning the agency would be able to track the effects of climate change on human health, like the spreading of infectious diseases, but it wouldn’t be able to tell states how to manage them or inform the public about how to stay safe from them.

Harris is expected to leave the CDC intact, but she hasn’t given many signals on how she’d approach climate and health initiatives. Her campaign website says she aims to protect public health, but provides no further clarification or policy position on that subject, or specifically climate change’s influence on it. Over the past four years, the Biden administration has made strides in protecting Americans from extreme heat, the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S. It proposed new heat protections for indoor and outdoor workers, and it made more than $1 billion in grant funding available to nonprofits, tribes, cities, and states for cooling initiatives such as planting trees in urban areas, which reduce the risk of heat illness. It’s reasonable to expect that a future Harris administration would continue Biden’s work in this area. Harris cast the tie-breaking vote on the IRA, which includes emissions-cutting policies that will lead to less global warming in the long term, benefiting human health not just in the U.S. but worldwide.

But there’s more to be done. Biden established the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity in the first year of his term, but it still hasn’t been funded by Congress. Harris has not said whether she will push for more funding for that office.

Zoya Teirstein, Staff writer covering politics and the intersection between climate change and health

Your food prices

Inflation has cooled significantly since 2022, but high prices — especially high food prices — remain a concern for many Americans. Both candidates have promised to tackle the issue; Harris went so far as to propose a federal price-gouging ban to lower the cost of groceries. Such a ban could help smaller producers and suppliers, but economists fear it could also lead to further supply shortages and reduced product quality. Meanwhile, Trump has said he will tax imported goods to lower food prices, though analysts have pointed out that the tax would likely do the opposite. Trump-era tariff fights during the U.S.-China trade war led to farmers losing billions of dollars in exports, which the federal government had to make up for with subsidies.

Trump’s immigration agenda could also affect food prices. If reelected, the former president has said he will expel millions of undocumented immigrants, many of whom work for low pay on farms and in other parts of the food sector, playing a vital role in food harvesting and processing. Their mass deportation and the resulting labor shortage could drive up prices at the grocery store. Meanwhile, Harris promises to uphold and strengthen the H-2A visa system — the national program that enables agricultural producers to hire foreign-born workers for seasonal work.

In the short term, it must be emphasized that neither candidate’s economic plans will have much of an effect on the ways extreme weather and climate disasters are already driving up the cost of groceries. Severe droughts are one of the factors that have destabilized the global crop market in recent years, translating to higher U.S. grocery store prices. Warming has led to reduced agricultural productivity and diminished crop yields, while major disasters throttle the supply chain. Even a forecast of extreme weather can send food prices higher. These climate trends are likely to continue over the next four years, no matter who becomes president.

But the winner of the 2024 election can determine how badly climate change batters the food supply in the long run — primarily by controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

Ayurella Horn-Muller, Staff writer focusing on the impact of climate change on food and agriculture

Your drinking water

“I want absolutely immaculate, clean water,” Trump said in June during the first presidential debate this election season. But if a second Trump presidency is anything like the first, there is good reason to worry about the protection of public drinking water.

During his first term in office, the Trump administration repealed the Clean Water Rule, a critical part of the Clean Water Act that limited the amount of pollutants companies could discharge near streams, wetlands, and other sources of water used for public consumption. “It was ready to protect the drinking water of 117 million Americans and then, within a few months of being in office, Donald Trump and [former EPA administrator] Scott Pruitt threw it into the trash bin to appease their polluter allies,” former Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a press release.

While in office, Trump also secured a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which last year tipped the court in favor of a decision to vastly limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate pollution in certain wetlands, forcing the agency to weaken its own clean water rules.

A Harris administration would likely carry forward the work of several Biden EPA measures to safeguard the public’s drinking water from toxic heavy metals and other contaminants. For example, in April, the EPA passed the nation’s first-ever national drinking water standard to protect an estimated 100 million people from a category of synthetic chemicals known as PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” which have been linked to cancer, high blood pressure, and immune system deficiencies. Enforcing the new standard will require the agency to examine test results from thousands of water systems across the country and follow up to ensure their compliance — an effort that will take place during the next White House administration.

“As president,” Harris’ website says, “she will unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis as she builds on this historic work, advances environmental justice, protects public lands and public health, increases resilience to climate disasters, lowers household energy costs, creates millions of new jobs, and continues to hold polluters accountable to secure clean air and water for all.” Project 2025, the policy plan drawn up by former Trump staffers to guide a second Trump administration’s policies, indicates that a future Trump administration would eliminate safeguards like the PFAS rule that place limits on industrial emissions and discharges.

Just this month, the EPA issued a groundbreaking rule requiring water utilities to replace virtually every lead pipe in the country within 10 years. With funds from Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law, the agency will also invest $2.6 billion for drinking water upgrades and lead pipe replacements. Harris has previously spoken out about the dangers of lead pipes, stating at a press conference in 2022 that lead exposure is “an issue that we as a nation should commit to ending.”

The success of these and other measures will rely on a well-staffed EPA enforcement division, which may end up being one of the most insidious stakes of this election for environmental policies. Budget cuts and staff departures during the first Trump administration gutted the EPA’s enforcement capacity — a problem that the agency has spent the past four years trying to mend. Project 2025 “would essentially eviscerate the EPA,” said Stan Meiburg, who served as acting deputy administrator for the EPA from 2014 to 2017.

 

Lylla Younes, Senior staff writer covering chemical pollution, regulation, and frontline communities

Your clean air

President Biden’s clean air policy has been characterized by a spate of new rules to curb toxic air pollution from a variety of facilities, including petroleum coke ovens, synthetic manufacturing facilities, and steel mills. While environmental advocates have decried some of these regulations as insufficiently protective, certain provisions — such as mandatory air monitoring — were hailed as milestones in the history of the agency’s air pollution policy. Former EPA staffer and air pollution expert Scott Throwe told Grist that a Harris- and Democratic-led EPA would continue to build on the work of the past four years by  enforcing these new rules, which will require federal oversight of state environmental agencies’ inspection protocols and monitoring data.

Project 2025 proposes a major reorganization of the EPA, which would include the reduction of full-time staff positions and the elimination of departments deemed “superfluous.” It also promotes the rollback of a range of air quality regulations, from ambient air standards for toxic pollutants to greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.

What’s more, a growing body of research has found that poor air quality is often concentrated in communities of color, which are disproportionately close to fossil fuel infrastructure. Conservative state governments havepushedback against the Biden EPA’s efforts to address “environmental justice” through agency channels and in court — efforts that will likely enjoy more executive support under a second Trump administration.

Your public lands

Under the Antiquities Act of 1906, a national monument can be created by presidential decree. The act can be a useful tool to protect important landscapes from industries like oil, gas, and even green energy enterprises. Tribal nations have asked numerous presidents to use this executive power to protect tribal homelands that might fall within federal jurisdiction. During his first term, Trump argued that the act also gives the president the implicit power to dissolve a national monument.

In 2017, Trump drastically shrunk two Obama-era designations, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, in what amounted to the biggest slash of federal land protections in the history of the United States. At the time, Trump said that “bureaucrats in Washington” should not control what happens to land in Utah. While giving back local control was Trump’s stated rationale, tribes in the area, like the Diné, Ute, Hopi, and Zuni, had been working for years to protect the two iconic and culturally significant sites. Meanwhile, his decision opened up the land for oil and gas development. While not all tribal nations are opposed to oil and gas production, tribal environmental advocates are worried that a second Trump term will erode federal environmental regulations and commitments to progress in the fight against climate change.

Since 2021, the Biden administration has put more than 42 million acres of land into conservation by creating and expanding national monuments. This includes the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, a new monument spanning a million acres near the Grand Canyon — the kind of protection that tribal activists for years had worked to prevent industrial uranium mining. And just this month, Biden announced the creation of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary — a 4,500-square-mile national marine sanctuary to be “managed with tribal, Indigenous community involvement.”

But Harris might not continue that legacy. While she has remained silent about what she would do to protect lands, she has been vocal about continuing the U.S.’s oil and gas production as well as a push for more mining to help with the green transition — like copper from Oak Flat in Arizona and lithium from Thacker Pass in Nevada — both important places to tribal communities in the area. Tribes have been subjected to the adverse effects of the energy crisis before — namely dams that destroyed swaths of homelands and nuclear energy that increased cancer rates of Southwest tribal members — and without specific protections, it’s easy to see green energy as a changing of the guard instead of a game changer.

Taylar Dawn Stagner, Indigenous affairs reporting fellow

Your next climate disaster

Congress controls how much money the Federal Emergency Management Agency receives for relief efforts after catastrophic events like hurricanes Helene and Milton, but the president holds significant sway over who receives money and when. A second Trump administration would likely curtail some of the climate-focused resiliency projects FEMA has pursued in recent years, such as cutting back money for infrastructure that would be more resilient against hazards like sea level rises, fires, and earthquakes. Republican firebrands, like Representative Scott Perry from Pennsylvania, have decried these projects as wasteful and unnecessary.

Under the Stafford Act, which governs federal disaster response, the president has the power to disburse relief to specific parts of the country after any “major disaster” — hurricanes, big floods, fires. In September, Trump suggested that he might make disaster aid contingent on political support if he returns to office, promising to withhold wildfire support from California unless state officials give more irrigation water to Central Valley farmers. Harris has not given an explicit indication of how she would fund climate-resiliency or disaster-response programs, though she has boosted FEMA’s recovery efforts following Helene and Milton.

 

Jake Bittle, Staff writer focusing on climate impacts and adaptation

Your understanding of climate change

The United States has long been a leader in research essential to understanding — and responding to — a warming world. The government plays a key role in advancing climate science and providing timely meteorological data to the public. Neither Trump nor Harris address this in their platform, but history yields clues to what their presidency might mean for this vital work.

Trump has consistently dismissed climate change as a “hoax” and downplayed scientific consensus that it is anthropogenic, or driven by human activities. As president, he gutted funding for research, appointed climate skeptics and industry insiders, and eliminated  scientific advisory committees from several federal agencies. Thousands of government scientists quit in response. (In fact, still reeling from Trump’s attacks, new union contracts protect scientific integrity to combat such meddling.) His administration censored scientific data on government websites and tried to undermine the findings of the National Climate Assessment, the government’s scientific report on the risks and impacts of climate change. If reelected, Trump would almost certainly adopt a similar strategy, deprioritizing climate science and potentially even restructuring or eliminating federal agencies that advance it.

Harris has long supported climate action; she co-sponsored the Green New Deal as a senator and, as vice president, cast the deciding vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which bolstered funding for agencies that oversee climate research. As part of its “whole of government” approach to the crisis, the Biden administration created the National Climate Task Force, with the EPA, NASA, and others to ensure science informs policy. Although Harris hasn’t said much about climate change as a candidate, climate organizations generally support her campaign and believe her administration will build on the progress made so far.

 

Sachi Kitajima Mulkey, Climate news reporting fellow

Your electric bill

A lot goes into calculating the energy rates you see on your monthly electric bill — construction and maintenance of power plants, fuel costs, and much more. It’s pretty tough to draw a direct line from the president to your bill, so if you’re worried about your energy costs, you’d do well to read up on your local public utility commission, municipal electric authority, or electric membership cooperative board.

What the president can do, though, is appoint people to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC — the board of up to five individuals who regulate the transmission of utilities across the entire country. As the U.S. continues to shift away from fossil fuels, a fundamental problem stands in the way: The country’s aging and fragmented grid lacks the capacity to move all of the electricity being generated from renewable sources. In May, FERC, which currently has a Democratic majority, approved a rule to try to solve that issue; it voted to require that regional utilities identify opportunities for upgrading the capacities of existing transmission infrastructure and that regional grid operators forecast their transmission needs 20 years into the future. These steps will be essential for utility companies to take advantage of the subsidies offered in the IRA and bipartisan infrastructure law.

The rule is facing legal challenges, which like much else in U.S. courts, appear to be political. So even if Harris wins November’s election, and maintains a commission that prioritizes the transition away from fossil fuels, the oil and gas industry and the politicians who support it will not acquiesce easily. If Trump wins, he’d have the chance to appoint a new FERC chair from among the current commissioners and to appoint a new commissioner in 2026, when the current chair’s term ends. (Or possibly sooner.) Although FERC’s actions tend to be more insulated from changes in the White House because commissioners serve five-year terms, a commission led by new Trump appointees would most likely deprioritize initiatives that would upgrade the grid to support clean energy adoption. Trump’s appointees supported fossil fuel interests on several fronts during his previous term, for instance by counteracting state subsidies to favor coal and gas plants.

Izzy Ross, Regional reporter, Great Lakes

Your trash

Some 33 billion pounds of plastic waste enter the marine environment globally every year, and the problem is expected to worsen as the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries ramp up plastic production.

Perhaps the most important step the next president could take to curb plastic pollution is to push Congress to ratify and implement the United Nations’ global plastics treaty, which is scheduled to be finalized by the end of this year. The Biden administration recently announced its support for a version of the treaty that limits plastic production, and, though Harris hasn’t made any public comment about it, experts expect that her administration would support it as well. Meanwhile, a former Trump White House official told Politico this April that Trump — who famously withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement in his first term — would take a “hard-nosed look” at any outcome of the plastics negotiations and be “skeptical that the agreement reached was the best agreement that could have been reached.”

The Biden administration has also taken some positive steps to address plastic pollution domestically, including a ban on the federal procurement of single-use plastics. Experts expect that progress to continue under a Harris administration. In 2011, as California’s attorney general, Harris sued plastic bottle companies over misleading claims that their products were recyclable. As a U.S. senator, she co-sponsored a Democratic bill to phase out unnecessary single-use plastic products.

Trump, meanwhile, does not have a strong track record on plastic. Although he signed a 2019 law to remove and prevent ocean litter, he has taken personal credit for the construction of new plastic manufacturing facilities and derided the idea of banning single-use plastic straws. And Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda could increase the extraction of fossil fuels used to make plastics.

Your votes

After decades of failed attempts to tackle the climate crisis, Congress finally passed major legislation two years ago with the Inflation Reduction Act. Not a single Republican voted for it.

Elections aren’t just important for getting the legislative power needed to enact climate policies — they’re also important for implementing them. The IRA and the bipartisan infrastructure law, another key climate-related law, are entering crucial phases for their implementation, particularly the doling out of billions of dollars for clean energy, environmental justice, and climate resiliency. Trump, having vowed to rescind unspent IRA funds if elected, seems poised to hamper the law’s rollout, slowing efforts to get the country using more clean energy.

But it’s a mistake to imagine that only federal elections matter when it comes to climate change. Eliminating greenhouse gases from energy, buildings, transportation, and food systems requires legislation at every level. In Arizona and Montana, for example, voters this year will elect utility commissioners, the powerful, yet largely ignored officials who play a crucial role in whether — and how quickly — the country moves away from fossil fuels. State legislators can also open the door to efforts to get 100 percent clean electricity, as happened in Michigan and Minnesota after the 2022 election. Even in a state like Washington with Democratic Governor Jay Inslee, who once campaigned for the White House on a climate change platform, votes matter — climate action is literally on the ballot in November, when voters could choose to kill the state’s landmark price on carbon pollution.

Depending on what happens with the presidential and congressional races, state and local action might be the best hope for furthering climate policy anyway.

Your global outlook

During his first term, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, a global commitment to reduce the burning of fossil fuels in an effort to curb the worst impacts of climate change. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” he said from the Rose Garden of the White House in 2017. Trump didn’t entirely abandon global climate discussions; his administration continued to attend global climate conferences, where it endorsed events on fossil fuels.

The Biden administration rejoined the Paris Agreement and pledged billions of dollars to combat climate change both domestically and abroad, but a second Trump administration would likely undo this progress. Trump says that he would pull out of the Paris Agreement again, and reportedly would also consider withdrawing the U.S. from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a 1992 treaty that’s the basis for modern global climate talks. Harris is expected, at least, to continue Biden’s policies. Speaking from COP28 in Dubai last year, an annual United Nations climate gathering, she celebrated America’s progress in tackling the climate crisis and petitioned for much more to be done. “In order to keep our critical 1.5 degree-Celsius goal within reach,” she said, “we must have the ambition to meet this moment, to accelerate our ongoing work, increase our investments, and lead with courage and conviction.”

But both the Trump and Biden administrations achieved record oil and gas production during their time in office, and Harris opposes a ban on fracking. In order to make a dent in the climate crisis, whoever becomes president would have to reject that status quo and put serious money behind global promises to mitigate climate change. Otherwise, climate change-related losses will just continue to mount — already, they are expected to cost $580 billion globally by 2030.

The post The Climate Stakes of the Harris-Trump Election appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The post Farmers Fought a Factory Farm and Won appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Many labels that guarantee humane treatment of farm animals (e.g., “humanely raised”), do anything but and are largely meaningless. Only recently did the USDA announce that it might regulate some of these labels after a push from advocates (we aren’t holding our breath). If this is the case of animal welfare labeling, consumers are right to be concerned that it is likely true of “green” labeling as well, particularly for the dairy industry, which is one of the most environmentally intensive industries on Earth. 

Farm Forward recently published a major investigative report detailing systematic animal suffering and consumer fraud at Alexandre Family Farm—a leading large-scale organic dairy company with “well over 9,000 head of cattle,” according to co-owner Blake Alexandre—whose products are covered in certification labels. The details of this investigation and the facts about large-scale dairy production should call into question the idea that the industry can be compatible with a more sustainable and humane food system. 

Farm Forward’s investigation and deceptive labeling

One of the key findings of Farm Forward’s investigation into Alexandre was this: Certifications such as Regenerative Organic Certified and Certified Humane were, sadly, insufficient to stop widespread abuse of cows and apparent environmental violations of land and water. This means that the primary function of labels—to give consumers assurances that a given product meets their values—frequently fails. In other words, humane labels aren’t there to help the consumer find better products. They’re tools for the meat and dairy industry to market their products. It’s unlikely, for example, that when a consumer sees one of these labels on Alexandre milk products in a Whole Foods Market, they imagine a field of dead cows being used as compost, or decaying cow corpses dangling into waterways, likely violating state water quality laws. Yet that’s exactly what Farm Forward’s investigation found. 

And then there’s the halo effect. Other companies that use Alexandre as a supplier, whether for ice cream, cheese, or even toddler formula, have used marketing based off of Alexandre’s humanewashing and greenwashing, and reaped the benefits. For a long time, Alexandre—and companies that have Alexandre as a supplier—have touted the Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) label, a certification with genuinely high standards for cow treatment. However, Farm Forward learned from its investigation that only a relatively small number of Alexandre cows (fewer than 300 of the more than 5,000 to 9,000 cows raised by Alexandre, or roughly three to six percent) actually qualify under the label. Yet, companies bathe in the good image of Alexandre all the same, touting Alexandre’s ROC certification whether or not the actual milk used in their products came from ROC cows (as of writing, Alexandre’s ROC certification was suspended after a February 2024 audit, pending conclusion of the investigation).

The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Green Guides require that marketers “ensure that all reasonable interpretations of their claims are truthful, not misleading, and supported by a reasonable basis” and that environmental marketing claims “not overstate, directly or by implication, an environmental attribute or benefit.” The FTC itself states that “…sometimes what companies think their green claims mean and what consumers really understand are two different things.” A consumer buying milk adorned with labels such as ROC and “Certified Humane” ought to have confidence that those products were actually made from properly treated cows by a company following environmental guidelines and ordinances, and free from the systematic abuse documented in the investigation. 

Large-scale dairy is incompatible with net zero

In order to understand deceptive labeling, however, we have to go back to the beginning: Why do massive dairy companies feel a need to plaster their products with misleading labels that may violate FTC guidelines? There’s a simple answer: They know the reputation of industrial dairy is faltering and are desperate to remedy the problem with claims that their industry can both expand and save us from climate disaster. And if the recent industrial dairy ad campaigns are any indication, it would seem that they are quite desperate. 

On an ultra-small scale, a sincere commitment to regenerative agriculture is compatible with reducing many of the harms of industrial animal agriculture, including harms to the climate. However, Alexandre and so many other companies that want to rehabilitate dairy farms are not small-scale; they may have thousands of animals under their care. And recent research into the ability of large-scale “regenerative” cow operations to offset as much greenhouse gas emissions as they produce is quite clear: It won’t work. The authors conclude that soil-based carbon sequestration “has a limited role to mitigate climate warming caused by the ruminant sector.” According to the study, offsetting the methane associated with global ruminant farming annually—a massive 135 gigatons—with soil-based sequestration is biophysically impossible. 

And yet, for decades, the broader dairy industry has been pushing smaller farmers out of business, the very farm operations that can represent a legitimate attempt at a regenerative system. 

Playing dairy roulette 

Farm Forward’s investigation didn’t just reveal that one particular company eschewed these standards, but also that the entire dairy system is flawed. Several certifications failed to see animal abuse happening right under their noses. USDA Organic requires that producers that treat an organic cow with antibiotics must remove that cow from the organic program. In doing so, the USDA inadvertently creates a financial disincentive for producers to treat suffering cows with the proper care, since non-organic milk and meat is sold at a far lower price point (see the report’s appendix); and many companies have benefited from the halo effect of Alexandre’s deceptions. What makes this all especially sad is that there are labels—Regenerative Organic Certified and Animal Welfare Approved among them—that genuinely have high standards relative to many other labeling schemes on the market. They can represent a small piece of the path toward a more sustainable and humane food system. But in the context of dairy production, the findings of the investigation have led Farm Forward to think that guaranteeing proper care of thousands of dairy cows just isn’t possible, given the unique challenges of dairy at scale and given the bad incentives. 

Alexandre’s failures are just one example of the dairy industry failing to live up to its promises. It tells us it can save the planet while treating cows humanely, while raking in unprecedented profits with its mega-dairies. How many more instances of animal abuse and climate devastation do we need to see before we stop believing that the industry that creates these harms also somehow holds the key to fixing them?

When a consumer buys milk from the grocery store—milk that they cannot guarantee came from an ultra small-scale operation with high standards of care—they are playing a game of dairy roulette. And in a world of such extreme levels of consumer deception, it becomes an easy choice to try oat milk. 

Farm Forward is a team of strategists, campaigners, and thought leaders guiding the movement to change the way our world eats and farms. Its mission is to change the way our world eats and farms end factory farming by changing farming, changing policy, and changing the stories we tell about animal agriculture. Learn more at https://www.farmforward.com/

The post Opinion: Farm Forward’s Investigation Into Alexandre Farms and the Greenwashing of Large-scale Dairy appeared first on Modern Farmer.

And then it got sued for it.

New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against JBS because its claim of pursuing net neutral emissions is not substantiated by actual changes in company behavior. Not only has the company not established an accurate enough estimate of its emissions, it has documented plans to increase production, which will increase emissions. JBS USA’s parent company reported greenhouse gas emissions of 71 million tons in 2021. This is higher than the total emissions of some countries. Concentrated animal agriculture is high in emissions because of things such as improper manure management and land used to grow feed. However, JBS’s estimate of its footprint does not include the emissions impact of deforestation—the company is responsible for clearing millions of acres in the Amazon.

This lawsuit alleges that JBS made these declarations anyway, knowing that it would be received positively by the public, creating a financial incentive. This is known as “greenwashing.”

JBS is not the only company to make extravagant climate claims. Many companies have made similar pledges. As a business, committing to reducing your emissions footprint is a good thing, when it’s done authentically. This lawsuit is an attempt to hold a company accountable for benefitting from an untrue message.

The outcome of this case could set an important precedent in the food industry and beyond.

Futurewashing

Tom Lyon, PhD, of the University of Michigan and the Greenwash Lab, says that he thinks James has a good case and could win.

“JBS hadn’t done anything to measure their existing footprint,” says Lyon. “So, if you have no idea of what your current footprint is, it’s really hard to develop a credible plan for reducing it over time.”

JBS is not the only company that has made a promise to achieve net zero emissions by a certain year. When a promise is not backed by a legitimate plan, this is a particular type of greenwashing called “futurewashing,” says Lyon.

“When we get to this futurewashing, it’s just a story about the future,” says Lyon. “So, there’s no way to verify if it’s true or not, because it hasn’t happened yet.”

There’s still a lot of gray area when it comes to the legal repercussions of greenwashing, but outside of the US, strides are being made.

This year, Canada passed a new law that requires companies to back up their sustainability claims. Companies that put forth net zero plans must also shoulder a burden of proof.

“If they don’t have any documentation to back it up, then they may be at risk of some sort of litigation,” says Lyon.

The United Nations, the Science Based Targets Initiative, and others are reaching a shared, science-backed understanding of what “net zero” can mean in the corporate world.

If James wins this case, it will mean that JBS must cease its “net zero by 2040” claims to continue selling its product in New York, potentially having a ripple effect beyond just one state.

Skepticism and grace

Maisie Ganzler, a strategic advisor for Bon Appétit Management Company, says that bold company goals need to be grounded in reality and transparency. There’s a difference between corporate greenwashing and failing to achieve a goal that was planned.

“We do need companies to make bold commitments to stick their neck out, maybe even without having all of their ducks in a row and their plans in place. But that’s very different than making a claim that is seemingly impossible, that you don’t have any plan as to…how to measure, much less how to meet.”

In Ganzler’s recent book, You Can’t Market Manure at Lunchtime: And Other Lessons from the Food Industry for Creating a More Sustainable Company, she writes that companies that make positive strides toward authentic sustainability can create a ripple effect toward industry change, for good and bad.

“I think that when one company sets the bar, their competitors have to come to that bar,” says Ganzler. “And a lot of positive change is made that way with true leaders raising the bar on their industry and forcing others along. But there is the shadow side of when false promises are made, it inspires other companies to also make false promises to appear competitive.”

For companies that want to be leaders in sustainability without greenwashing, Ganzler recommends setting audacious goals with specific plans to achieve them. Don’t make a promise about something that is beyond your scope to know, such as what happens at every stage in the supply chain. If those plans go awry, be transparent with your consumers about why. In her book, Ganzler details an experience she had at Bon Appétit, when she realized that its pork supplier wasn’t meeting the welfare standards to which Bon Appétit had committed. Bon Appétit had inaccurately overstated its supplier’s welfare practices, but found a new supplier and issued a press release owning up to the mistake. Instead of facing backlash, Bon Appétit was praised by the Humane Society for its progress.

As for consumers, Ganzler says everyone has a responsibility to do a little bit of research. But in the end, it’s important to approach the companies they shop from with a balanced perspective.

“[You should have] both a healthy dose of skepticism, but also on the other side, a healthy dose of grace,” says Ganzler. “You should question commitments that companies are making, but also have grace for companies who aren’t truly trying to do the right thing and may fall short.”

The post New York is Suing One of the Country’s Largest Meat Processors for Greenwashing appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Two hours into the journey, the truck stopped for fuel in South Dakota. The Animals’ Angels investigators were able to approach the truck and see the ear tags for the calves. They were about one week old, and crammed together so tightly they were stepping on each other.

The truck continued to Kansas, where it stopped again for gas. At this point, temperatures had reached 100 degrees, but at no point were the calves given water or milk. The investigators could hear the calves bellowing in discomfort.

Video courtesy of Animal Welfare Institute/Animals’ Angels

There are a few issues here, says Adrienne Craig, senior policy associate and staff attorney for the Animal Welfare Institute. First is that these calves were being transported so young—sometimes just a day or two after they are born—before they had the chance to develop mature immune systems. This makes them vulnerable to disease during transport, potentially resulting in death. In this particular truck, the calves still had their umbilical cord attached, creating a risk for infection.

Second is that the conditions of the trip are stressful. The vibrations, noise, fumes, and abrupt motion of the road cause discomfort for the calves. During the 19-hour transport that Animals’ Angels investigators documented, they witnessed this truck reach risky speeds of up to 90 miles per hour, maintaining speed on curves. The investigators felt confident the calves were tossed around in the back. 

Typically, calves this age will eat every few hours or so. During the entire trip, the investigators did not see the calves get fed even once.

“We know that they’re not being fed on these journeys, because the logistics of stopping and bottle-feeding 200 neonatal calves is entirely unfeasible,” says Craig. 

When the truck reached its final destination, Animals’ Angels was not able to follow it inside to see the condition of the calves. But they drove by the next day to see where the calves were kept. It’s called a ranch, but it’s anything but idyllic—the investigators drove by and saw row after row of confined hutches filled with calves.

Product of consolidation

The long-haul transportation of newly born calves is a practice that has become common for very large dairies with tens of thousands of cows. According to research by the Animal Welfare Institute, hundreds of thousands of newborn calves are transported long distances every year to ranches where they are raised, either to be returned to the dairy as milking cows or slaughtered for dairy beef.

The problem is that the conditions of this travel at such a young age put these calves in a vulnerable situation, says Craig. Despite this, there are virtually no enforced legal protections for calves in this position.

“Some producers don’t prioritize…feeding them in such a way that they’re in the best shape to be transported these long distances,” says Craig. “Unfortunately, there just really isn’t any oversight on this.”

The dairies that participate in this practice are the ones with tens of thousands of cows, commonly called mega-dairies. It’s unclear when exactly this practice began, says Craig, but it has likely increased since dairy cows and beef cattle began being bred together to produce cows raised for “dairy beef,” dairy industry cattle that are butchered for consumption.

Dairies require pregnant cows, but at mega-dairies, many of the calves do not remain there after they’re born. Many mega-dairies ship these calves to the southwest where they are raised. Some of the females will be returned as dairy cows and the rest, both male and female, are butchered as dairy beef.

The industry dominance of megadairies at the expense of independent farms is a factor here. These systems prioritize efficiency, and transporting calves as quickly as possible is the most expedient option.

“It is certainly a product of consolidation of the dairy industry,” says Craig.

Solutions 

Waiting until the calves are older, perhaps a month old, or at least until their navel has healed from the umbilical cord, would make transport a lot safer for them, says Craig. The AWI has filed a petition with the USDA to improve regulations for interstate transport of young animals. 

Existing protections for interstate animal transport begin and end with the Twenty-Eight Hour Law, which states that animals must be offloaded for rest, food, and water if they have been traveling for 28 hours. However, this law is not consistently enforced. 

In June, Representative Dina Titus of Nevada introduced the Humane Transport of Farmed Animals Act to Congress, a bill that, if it becomes a law, would require the USDA to come up with a way to enforce the Twenty-Eight Hour Law, and it would make it illegal to transport animals deemed unfit to travel. This could be because of sickness, injury, or being too young.

Craig recommends that shoppers who are hoping to avoid supporting these kinds of practices can look for the third-party certifications Global Animal Partnership and Animal Welfare Approved on their dairy products, both of which have a minimum age requirement for transport. Another option is the Certified Humane certification, which does not have a minimum age but does have a time limit on how long animals can be on the road. You can read AWI’s full certification guide here.

The post The 1,000-Mile Journey of a Newborn Calf appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Sonoma County is the heart of California wine country. With a population of almost half a million, the region is known for its arable land and stunning vistas – the “Tuscany of America,” according to local rancher Bronte Edwards.

But Sonoma has a less genteel side: The area is also home to approximately 3 million head of livestock held in concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These factory farms not only force animals to live in overcrowded, dirty conditions, they also produce copious amounts of manure, which can cause water pollution and other health hazards.

In November, county residents will have the unique opportunity to ban CAFOs with a ballot initiative that would completely prohibit industrial livestock operations. If “Measure J” passes, Sonoma will be the first county in the United States to ban CAFOs. It would call for a moratorium on the creation of future facilities, along with a three-year phase-out period for current operations. The petition to get Measure J on the ballot garnered 17,000 signatures more than the minimum of 20,000 needed to get on the ballot.

“It’s a good balance of a moderate ask that is widely supported by the public, and bold in that it’s the first of its kind,” said Cassie King, an organizer with the Coalition to End Factory Farming, a collection of groups backing Measure J.

According to the Sierra Club, “large, high density CAFOS have reduced the number of livestock farmers in the U.S. by 80%.” In a tight-knit agricultural county like Sonoma, though, even the big players are friendly faces at the grocery store. And if Measure J passes, it would force these larger enterprises in Sonoma to change their practices or shut down.

“It’s a good balance of a moderate ask that is widely supported by the public, and bold in that it’s the first of its kind.”

The measure faces strong opposition, even from some small-scale farmers and ranchers, who fear that banning CAFOs will disrupt an economy grounded in agritourism and gastronomy. The measure has split Sonoma County, with local farmers and concerned citizens lining up on both sides of the proposed ban. Both the “Yes on J” website and the one belonging to “No on J” feature numerous local farms and advocacy groups.

In an email to High Country News, Roy Smith, a Sonoma County farmer who runs a seven-acre hay operation, wrote that the debate lacks nuance: “Both sides argue a truth, and both sides permit a falsehood,” he said. Still, he applauded Measure J for “rais(ing) awareness of the presence of industrial confinement facilities in our backyard.”

In a country dominated by large-scale farming operations comprising thousands of acres of monocrops, Sonoma County is an outlier. Forty-three percent of its farms are very small — around one to nine acres — and 32% are 10 to 49 acres. (The average U.S. farm is 464 acres.) In 2022, Sonoma County farmers produced half a billion dollars’ worth of wine grapes. Livestock, poultry and animal products brought in approximately $140 million.

A series of recent legal fights over water pollution set the stage for Measure J. Last year, Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs), a nonprofit that focuses on chemical pollution, sued Reichardt Duck Farm, a 373-acre duck-processing facility in Sonoma County. CATs alleged that Reichardt was discharging storm water into an unnamed creek, which eventually made its way to Tomales Bay and ultimately the Pacific Ocean. Reichardt Duck Farm settled the suit.

“We heartily support curbing CAFOs. They’re disgusting. They have a horrific impact on the environment,” said Patty Clary, executive director of CATs, which is a member of the coalition backing Measure J.

This year, on July 5, CATs gave a dairy CAFO in Sonoma a 60-day notice of the group’s intent to file suit for violations of the Clean Water Act. Almost all waterways in Sonoma County are considered “impaired” by the Environmental Protection Agency, meaning they’re too polluted for swimming and boating.

Clary, who grew up in Sonoma County, is not only concerned about the animals in CAFOs, but also the lives of the people who work in them. Measure J declares that the county must provide “a retraining and employment assistance program for current and former CAFO workers.” She hopes that a ban on CAFOs would create a “lower-key” agricultural environment.

“Without a giant CAFO, this sort of animal production would be more spread out in the community, where people could develop little co-ops and have a number of small farms providing the product that one big CAFO is producing,” she said.

Measure J is more complicated for many local farmers, including Smith, who raises sheep, poultry and swine, in addition to hay. But he agrees with one major aspect of it: a ban on poultry confinement facilities in Sonoma.

“They are an abomination in every possible way,” he said.

Smith grew up in Sonoma and laments the changes he has witnessed; a shift from small-scale operations dotting the landscape to large-scale enterprises that gobble everything up. “CAFOs, local and national, continue to drive retail prices down below levels that can sustain small, humane, agroecological producers,” he said.

But he fears that Measure J will impact some medium-sized dairies that, in his opinion, do not meet the standard definition of a CAFO.

Bronte Edwards and her wife, Liz Bell, who run Rainbow Family Ranching, share these concerns. Edwards and Bell are self-described “queer first-gen livestock ranchers.” They describe their farm as “carbon negative” and try to purchase locally grown hay. The prospect of Measure J worries them, especially its proposed definition of a CAFO, which denotes facilities where “animals … have been, are, or will be stabled or confined and fed or maintained for a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period.” This “45-day” rule is part of the same definition that the EPA uses for CAFOs.

Other provisions in the measure — such as language specifying the number of animals confined and how waste is discharged — appear to protect farms like the Rainbow Family Ranching from the ban. Advocates for Measure J have identified 21 “large CAFOs” in Sonoma County that house anywhere from 900 to 600,000 animals. A spokesperson for “Yes on Measure J” said that an operation that meets the 45-day rule, but none of the other CAFO definitions, would not be affected.

“This measure will force multigenerational family farmers to sell their farms. They will be fragmented, and they will be developed.”

Despite this, Edwards and Bell remain concerned about what the measure will mean for their neighbors, some of whom operate facilities with over 200 head of livestock — which might render them a CAFO under Measure J.

“This measure will force multigenerational family farmers to sell their farms. They will be fragmented, and they will be developed,” Edwards said.

She added that keeping farms together is important for conservation, as it allows wildlife to move between open spaces and grazing lands. In her day job, Edwards works with a land trust to purchase development rights and easements to keep farms whole, preserving land for future generations.

Regardless of the result at the ballot box in November, both sides of the Measure J debate agree on one thing: The proposal will leave a mark on Sonoma County. According to Clary, if Measure J passes, it could set an example to other counties across the nation.

“If it loses, it will have made a crack in the in the eggshell, and it will still have an impact,” she said.

This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan spoke first. He touched on the importance of having representation for urban agriculture within city government. “I felt like I was supportive of farming, but our bureaucracy wasn’t supportive,” he said in the announcement.

And then Rushdan moved in front of the microphone, to the sound of loud cheering.

By appointing Rushdan, Detroit joined a small handful of cities that are creating positions within city government for urban agriculture. Urban farming is known for connecting city dwellers with their food source, increasing food security and creating beautiful green spaces. Although urban agriculture has deep roots in many cities, these directors are giving city food spaces an institutional voice within the government, complementing the agency and advocacy that has long accompanied the practice.

“It really shows that community that they’re valuable to the city, because they have an advocate at that level,” Rushdan said later to Modern Farmer. 

Detroit, Michigan

Mayor Duggan’s proposed Land Value Tax Plan, on which Detroit may get to vote in 2024, would cut property taxes on structures such as houses while dramatically increasing the taxes for vacant lots. The idea is to reduce taxes for homeowners, without losing tax revenue for the city and simultaneously encouraging owners of vacant land to develop it. But the initial plans also created a problem: Urban farmers were caught in the middle, potentially facing big tax burdens if the plan was passed.

Urban farmers began meeting with Duggan to discuss the issue, leading to an exemption for urban farms under the proposed tax increases. Another byproduct of these meetings was the realization by the city that they needed the voices of urban farmers represented in government. Shortly after, Rushdan’s position was created.

In her speech at the ceremony, Rushdan made sure to acknowledge that while she’s the first in this position, she stands on the shoulders of giants in the Detroit agriculture scene. She referenced multiple local leaders who had helped build and expand urban agriculture in Detroit, such as Kathryn Underwood of the City Planning Commission and Malik Yakini of the Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network.

“Even though this is a new iteration… I do see this as like a little bit of a continuation of that spirit,” said Rushdan later to Modern Farmer. “I think it’s important to always uplift that history.” 

Farming has a long history in Detroit, and many cities can say the same. In her position, Rushdan can help urban farmers navigate the challenges that remain—acquiring land is difficult, and finding land that has access to public water is an additional challenge. It can also be hard to compete with developers. In some cases, developers have bought up land where cultivation was taking place, and farmers lost decades of work.

“We really got aggressive over the last five years—we’re trying to figure out how to make people land secure,” says Rushdan.

But Detroit is in a unique position, because there’s a lot of vacant land. “It’s like re-imagining what a city could be with a lens of green space or the lens of sustainability,” says Rushdan.

Boston, Massachusetts

Shani Fletcher is the first director of GrowBoston, the city’s office of urban agriculture. In 2013, Boston adopted Article 89, which brought urban agriculture into the city zoning code. But there weren’t a lot of city programs to move urban farming initiatives forward. 

“We just saw this need for more kinds of programming and more kinds of investments beyond capital investments,” says Fletcher. In response, the mayor created GrowBoston, and Fletcher, whose career was driven by food justice, was appointed to the helm.

Part of Fletcher’s work at GrowBoston is to meet with other city departments that have an impact on urban agriculture—Public Health, Water and Sewer, Parks and Recreation and many more—which is part of why having a voice for urban agriculture in city government is so important. 

“Because of just the nature of urban agriculture, there’s so many departments that can have an impact on it, in a positive or negative way,” says Fletcher. “And so I think having an office and some staff who are actually focused on addressing the whole of urban agriculture and can kind of work with other departments to strategize is really a big benefit.”

The fact that urban agriculture is influenced by multiple departments is evidenced by the fact that in the cities that have an office for urban agriculture, it is housed in different departments. Boston’s is in Housing. DC’s is in Energy & Environment. Atlanta, City Planning. Philadelphia, Parks and Recreation.

As in Detroit, accessing land for urban agriculture and the upfront costs associated with making land suitable for farming is a significant obstacle in Boston. Fletcher says for people looking to begin urban agriculture in cities facing similar access issues, creatively engaging with others about how to use existing space is a good way to begin. This could be connecting with public officials or private landowners or rethinking what garden space can be.

“I really get excited thinking about growing food in weird places,” says Fletcher, such as vertically, on rooftops or in other creative spaces. “I like the idea of it just being kind of everywhere you go, there could be food growing, and that that’s being eaten, and that’s getting to people who need it.”

Washington, DC and beyond

Kate Lee became the director of the Office of Urban Agriculture in Washington, DC in March 2020, but the need for her position arose several years earlier. In 2014, the District passed an environmental sustainability plan called Sustainable DC. One goal of this plan was to increase the amount of land under cultivation in the District by 20 acres. Urban agriculturists wanted to step to the plate, but they hit a common barrier—how to access land for this purpose? 

“The community advocated more and more vocally that we need a position embedded in this government, we need someone with know-how to run these programs to liaise between the government and the stakeholders,” says Lee.

In response, DC passed legislation in 2019 to create the Office of Urban Agriculture and Lee’s position.

DC is and has been gentrifying rapidly, and there’s a lot of value in supporting long-term residents of the District, says Lee. “The office is driven by community ownership, food sovereignty and self-determination … using our resources and our opportunity to advocate for self-determination.”

Although some of the cities with official urban agriculture positions might look far apart on a map, they don’t exist in silos. The directors have self-organized into a group that meets regularly and shares ideas and feedback with each other. The name of the group, of which Lee and Fletcher are co-chairs, is the Urban Agriculture Directors Network (part of the Urban Sustainability Directors Network), but you don’t actually have to be a director to join, as long as you’re a municipal government employee influencing urban agriculture in your area. Four years after its inception, this cohort now includes about 20 different municipalities. In the meetings, participants share best practices, support and coach each other and even celebrate victories, such as the creation of a new urban agriculture liaison in New Orleans.

“Our three cities [DC, Boston and Austin, Texas] wrote to the mayor of New Orleans [and] said, ‘Based on this position, please join this echelon of other cities leading in this work,’” says Lee. “And they did. New Orleans just funded an urban agriculture liaison position. And so that is the type of stuff that is really keeping me going.”

Are you thinking about getting started in urban agriculture?: Look into local ordinances so that you can stay safe from accidentally breaking the law. Make connections with your neighbors and let them know what you’re doing. If your city doesn’t have an office of agriculture (yet), Rushdan says: “Find some advocates within the city. In a city that doesn’t have any office of agriculture that you can turn to, you [have] to find those advocates within the departments that believe in what you’re doing, so that they can figure out the internal systems.”

Fletcher echoes the sentiment of building connections with others who are engaged in urban agriculture. “I think there’s so much about urban agriculture that is about building community. And I think if someone’s interested in getting involved in urban agriculture, looking around your community and seeing who’s doing that already is a really good starting point.”

The post On the Ground With Local Governments Prioritizing Urban Ag appeared first on Modern Farmer.