Food should be good for you. But some foods aren’t. Pesticides are sprayed on millions of acres every year and some of them end up on your food. Our broken farm subsidy system encourages over production of the wrong food. EWG is pushing for better policy and more sustainable ways of farming that produce healthy food in a healthy environment.
Food
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Despite the rapid growth of the organic sector and the price premiums enjoyed by organic farmers, U.S. production of organic food has significantly lagged behind consumer demand.
Last fall, an EWG investigation debunked the agriculture industry’s claims that American farms “feed the world.” In fact, fewer than 1 percent of U.S. exports go toward feeding the hungriest nations.
In recent years, important bipartisan progress has been made to food policy, including new food safety laws, new rules and incentives for healthier packaged foods, increased access to healthier foods, new rules to require healthier food in schools, and efforts to make food labels more transparent.
Can we reform farm policies to support healthier diets? The Washington Post’s food writer Tamar Haspel discounts the role that subsidies can play in the choices farmers make, noting that subsidies flow to some barley and lentil farmers, as well as corn and soybean farmers.
