Catch up on the latest news and analysis from EWG’s team of experts.
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Defining a True Safety Net for Struggling Farmers
With Congress in recess, talks on reshaping the federal Farm Bill, due for action in 2012, have been set aside while nervous lawmakers focus on the November elections.
International Ag Policy Experts Talk Farm Subsidy Reform
Mexico and the United States have a lot more in common than a border. Their agricultural and rural policies have strikingly similar flaws–and present parallel opportunities for reform and...
"We've Made the Unhealthy Choice the Rational Choice"
A big reason that food products derived from corn are so pervasive in America's diet today is that for decades taxpayers have given corn growers incentives to grow as much as possible through the...
Endless Injustice for Black Farmers
It's now a done deal. After Congress in July rebuffed several attempts by Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) to win funding for an agriculture disaster aid package that would send generous checks to...
Taxpayers Fuel Rise of the Mega (Family) Farm
Discussions in Congress on reforming America's broken food and farm policy in the next farm bill have already begun. Lots of voices are chiming in from the pro-food and sustainable agriculture circles...
Large Farms To Reap Subsidy Windfall
A controversial White House pledge to spend $1.5 billion to retroactively compensate farmers for 2009 crop losses -- and thereby boost the reelection prospects of Arkansas Democratic Sen. Blanche...
Shelf Life Theory Has Short Expiration Date
The large, industrial growers of corn floated a trial balloon recently (July 20) in an attempt to justify continued taxpayer subsidies that have totaled $73.8 billion since 1995 for the ubiquitous...
The Bitter Ironies in USDA's Firing of Shirley Sherrod
The conflagration that embroiled the US Department of Agriculture last week (July 19) over the knee-jerk dismissal of an African American official who was falsely accused of reverse discrimination is...
More Potential Giveaways to Ethanol in Energy Bill
In an bid to garner support for legislation to address the looming danger of climate change, Midwest senators are reportedly pressing to attach a long-term extension of biofuel tax breaks to a Senate...
Nitrogen Fertilizer's Toll: Not Just Dead Zones
Last week began with a front page story in the San Francisco Chronicle (July 5) detailing the links between increased fertilizer run-off due to corn ethanol production in the Mississippi River Basin...
$600 Million for BP -- Courtesy of US Taxpayers
2010 won't be all lemons for BP. Sure, the company will be best remembered for blowout preventers, top kill and Tony Hayward, but along the way the oil giant stands to make a killing from its...
Farm Subsidies 101: For eaters, not policy wonks
There's a lot of talk these days about healthy food, sustainable farming, organics, and buying local. A lot.
Farm Subsidy Database
The decades-old momentum behind federal farm subsidies delivered $13.4 billion to farmers in 2006, according to the latest update of the Environmental Working Group's Farm Subsidy Database website...
Quickly, a "Lie" Becomes an "Overstatement"
Since the May release of the Environmental Working Group's update of its farm subsidy database, the media have paid a lot of attention to Tea Party candidates for Congress who paradoxically receive...
Huge Taxpayer Investment in Ethanol Yields Paltry Payoff
Between 2005 and 2009, U.S. taxpayers spent a whopping $17 billion to subsidize corn ethanol blends in gasoline. What did they get in return? A reduction in overall oil consumption equal to an...
Farm Subsidy Recipients Say the Darndest Things
In the month since EWG's 2010 update of our Farm Subsidy Database, subsidy recipients and program defenders have been reacting in interesting ways to the new data. Here's a roundup: Tennessee...
Harvesting Taxpayers for Disaster Payments
The 2008 farm bill included a new program to replace ad hoc disaster appropriations that have averaged $2 billion per year in recent years. The Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE) Program...
More Attention for USDA's Lack of Transparency
There is increasing attention on the restriction of access to government records on taxpayer funded farm subsidies reported by the Environmental Working Group. 74 percent of payments administered by...
Obama's USDA Less Transparent Than Bush's
The Environmental Working Group has worked hard to track the billions lavished on the wealthiest and largest farm operations in the country, in the hope that releasing the information would spur...
Farm Income Data Debunks Subsidy Myths
Environmental Working Group's updated Farm Subsidy Database, released May 5, chronicles where federal farm subsidy dollars have gone from 1995 through 2009, revealing the true impact of farm programs...
