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There's a lot of doom and gloom in the air about the state of the farm economy. As commodity prices continue to fall from the historic highs of the last few years, advocates for the agriculture industry have been claiming that growers will have a hard time making ends meet. The House Agriculture Committee has held hearings to “focus on the farm economy,” inviting witnesses from Big Ag to declare

Code names for untested chemicals, secret production amounts reported by unnamed companies, discharges of undisclosed amounts of pollutants – these occurrences are not the fantastical inventions of some Dr. Seuss book. These are realities currently allowed under the federal Toxic Substances Control Act, commonly referred to as TSCA, which became law in 1976.

Big food and biotechnology companies and trade associations seeking to block labeling of food with genetically modified organisms through a rider in the end-of-the year federal spending bill have reported spending $75.5 million on lobbying from January through September of this year.

More than 2.3 million pounds of the acutely toxic pesticide methyl bromide were applied near 455 public schools in California in 1998, according to state records of pesticide use analyzed by the Environmental Working Group. Methyl bromide, a volatile nerve gas, is a Category 1 acute toxin, the most hazardous classification of toxic chemicals, and causes birth defects and brain and nervous system

Laboratory tests of apples grown in Washington State and purchased in Seattle supermarkets over the past five months found widespread insecticide contamination. Eight percent of apple samples had unsafe levels of a bug killer abruptly banned for use on apples and other foods in August, 1999 by federal authorities because of nervous system risks to children.

An analysis of federal enforcement records shows that large industrial polluters in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania are routinely breaking the law -- and getting away with it. Big water polluters are almost never fined for their violations, and when they are fined, the penalties are often too low to act as a deterrent to future pollution. For many big polluters, breaking clean water laws has

Most voters do not know that George W. Bush's policy advisors typically work for corporate front groups working for goals far outside the mainstream environmental perspective.

More than two million California children attend school in portable classrooms that can be a significant source of exposure to airborne toxic chemicals and molds, according to state and federal data analyzed by Environmental Working Group (EWG).

Fish from more than 1,660 U.S. waterways are so contaminated with mercury that they should not be eaten or eaten only in limited amounts, according to federal health warnings analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Children and mothers-to-be are at highest risk, not only from fresh fish but from mercury contamination of canned tuna and other foods.

Although farming contributes little to the problem of airborne toxic particles, farmers suddenly find themselves in the middle of a heated battle over an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal to improve air quality by reducing emissions from electric utilities, chemical plants and oil companies.

Approximately 109,000 children in California breathe unhealthy air at school, according to an Environmental Working Group (EWG) computer analysis. These children attend one of the 147 schools in the state located in areas where monitored air pollution levels exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's proposed new standards for microscopic toxic airborne particles.

Like K-Pop music and spicy fried chicken, skin care and beauty products from Korea are flooding the American market. U.S. sales of K-beauty products, as they're called, have increased by almost 300 percent in the past two years alone.

In the past eight years, three predominantly Black, Native American and Latino counties in North Carolina – already home to most of the state's industrial hog operations – added 30 million chickens and turkeys, according to a new geospatial analysis by the Environmental Working Group and Waterkeeper Alliance.

In California's San Joaquin Valley, the nation's leading agricultural region, Latinos make up the great majority of farmworkers.

Babies and young children typically spend the majority of their first years in diapers. But many disposable diapers contain hazardous chemicals that can harm their health. Scientific assessments of disposable diapers have detected pesticides and chemicals linked to cancer, impaired reproductive development and dermatitis, among other harms.

Seasonal spikes of atrazine, a weed killer that disrupts hormones and harms the developing fetus, contaminate the drinking water of millions of Americans at potentially hazardous levels as run-off from corn-growing areas finds its way into source waters and reservoirs.