Agriculture

"USDA’s staffing cuts, scuttled conservation programs, and misdirected crop insurance are hitting farmers hard."

"A group of experts says Western states urgently need to cut water use to avert a deepening crisis on the Colorado River. The river’s major reservoirs are less than one-third full, and another dry winter would push reservoirs toward critically low levels."

"Cuts to SNAP and farm-to-school programs under the Trump administration risk worsening childhood disease, nutrition experts warn."

"A long-awaited and highly controversial report issued on Tuesday by the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Commission provides a few “crumbs” for public and environmental health advocates, but big wins for powerful food and chemical industries seeking to skirt limits on their products and practices."

"A bill drastically reducing the scope of the Clean Water Act passed through committee in the U.S. House and will likely reach the floor for debate later this month. The legislation would narrow the definition of bodies of water that qualify for protection under the Clean Water Act and would remove laws requiring permits before discharging pesticides or manure-contaminated stormwater from factory farms into waterways."

"Herbicides in forestry kill broadleaf vegetation that compete with softwoods, which are more flammable" 

"High atop the Luossavaara Mountain in northern Sweden, Sami reindeer herder Lars-Marcus Kuhmunen mapped out a bleak future for himself and other Indigenous people whose reindeer have roamed this land for thousands of years."

"N.C. research would have provided crucial data on understudied effects of the burgeoning industry on predominantly Black, Indigenous and Latino residents."

"Despite MAHA promises to reduce chemical exposures, experts warn the Trump administration is approving a wave of ‘frightening’ pesticides."

"A Trump administration plan to remove thousands of agriculture employees from Washington, D.C., is raising concerns among economists, who fear that such a move could erode expertise in a workforce reluctant to relocate."