Food & Agriculture - Inside Climate News

The Most Expensive Farm Bill Ever Is Stalled, Holding Back Important Funds Aimed at Combating the Climate Crisis

By Georgina Gustin — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 09:10:00 +0000

Lawmakers approved spending bills for agriculture this week, but bickered over environmental regulations and the lack of progress on the bill.

By Georgina Gustin

In an often-contentious hearing on Wednesday, members of the House Committee on Agriculture fired shots at each other over the Biden administration’s attempts to regulate farm pollution.

Will the Nation’s First Heat Protection Standard Safeguard the Most Vulnerable Workers?

By Liza Gross — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The long overdue federal heat standard proposal gets many things right but will take years to enact, and enforcement will be key, says climate health expert Juanita Constible.

By Liza Gross

The Biden administration finally proposed federal heat protection standards last week, more than half a century after federal experts first outlined the need for such rules.

Widespread Flooding in Upper Midwest Decimates Farm Towns

By Nina Elkadi — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Rain came when farmers needed it most, but it came at a catastrophic rate, destroying crops and shaking communities.

By Nina Elkadi

Bob Hilt was in the fourth grade when his family’s farm, perched along the Big Sioux River in southeastern South Dakota, flooded in 1969.

Financing of Meat and Dairy Giants Grows Thanks to Big American Banks and Investors

By Georgina Gustin — Sat, 29 Jun 2024 09:10:00 +0000

New reports show that banks have contributed hundreds of billions of dollars in financing to large milk and dairy companies in the years since the Paris Agreement was signed.

By Georgina Gustin

The world’s biggest banks and investors are continuing to funnel billions of dollars to carbon-intensive industrial livestock companies, undermining their own pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions and fueling an ongoing boom in meat and milk production that threatens global climate goals.

Billions of Gallons of Freshwater Are Dumped at Florida’s Coasts. Environmentalists Want That Water in the Everglades

By Amy Green — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Environmental groups want to use engineered wetlands to help replenish the river of grass and address toxic algae. The state’s politically powerful sugar growers say those wetlands are for their own polluted water.

By Amy Green

Scattered between the vast sugar cane and vegetable fields of Florida’s heartland and the fragile marshes of the Everglades are a series of wetlands, resembling nature but hardly natural, that together represent the largest experiment of its kind in the world.

Biofuel Refineries Are Releasing Toxic Air Pollutants in Farm Communities Across the US

By Georgina Gustin — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 23:43:23 +0000

The ethanol industry has billed itself as a green alternative to oil and gas, but new research finds biofuel refineries are releasing toxic chemicals in farm communities across the nation.

By Georgina Gustin

For decades, American farm policy has funneled tens of billions of taxpayer dollars toward renewable, crop-based fuels, with elected leaders and the biofuels industry lauding them as cleaner, greener alternatives to petroleum.

Texas Droughts Are Getting Much More Expensive

By Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News, and Alejandra Martinez, Texas Tribune — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Rising temperatures intensify drought and increase costs for the heavily subsidized crop insurance program. Texas farmers say they couldn’t do business without it.

By Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News, and Alejandra Martinez, Texas Tribune

The financial costs of drought in Texas have risen rapidly over recent decades, according to a new analysis of federal crop insurance data.

After Five Years Without Drinkable Water, a Nebraska Town Asks: When Will Our Tap Water Be Safe?

By Destiny Herbers, Flatwater Free Press — Sun, 26 May 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The Santee Sioux Nation reservation in northeast Nebraska has been under a no-drink order since 2019. Leaders hope a new state law could jumpstart funding needed to fix the problem.

By Destiny Herbers, Flatwater Free Press

This story was reported and originally published by the Flatwater Free Press, Nebraska’s nonprofit investigative newsroom.

The Department of Agriculture Rubber-Stamped Tyson’s “Climate Friendly” Beef, but No One Has Seen the Data Behind the Company’s Claim

By Georgina Gustin — Wed, 08 May 2024 09:00:00 +0000

As millions of taxpayer dollars flow to livestock companies claiming to raise “low carbon” beef, watchdog groups scrutinize the government’s oversight.

By Georgina Gustin

About five miles south of Broken Bow, in the heart of central Nebraska, thousands of cattle stand in feedlots at Adams Land & Cattle Co., a supplier of beef to the meat giant Tyson Foods.

Biden Administration Pressed to Act on Federal Contractor Climate Disclosure

By Marianne Lavelle — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 09:15:00 +0000

Twenty-six members of Congress urge agencies to finalize rules that would leverage the market power of the world's largest purchaser to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

By Marianne Lavelle

It was a key pledge in President Joe Biden’s effort to show renewed international leadership on climate change: The U.S. government, the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world, would require its contractors and suppliers to disclose their carbon emissions and climate risks.