The Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., in March 2024 (Lyle Muller/Investigate Midwest).

Imagine an agricultural chemical so vial, so poisonous, so unsafe to human health that even the pesticide-friendly and herbicide-happy Environmental Protection Agency eventually couldn’t look the other way.

That chemical is dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate, also known as DCPA, sold under the brand name Dachtal. The herbicide is widely used on broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, and onion crops in the U.S.

Just one company manufactures DCPA, AMVAC Chemical Corporation. But not anymore after AMVAC and EPA couldn’t agree on a new product warning label to address what the federal agency calls “an imminent hazard” in its emergency order to suspend registration:

“…current uses of DCPA may expose pregnant individuals to levels of the pesticide sufficient to cause adverse thyroid effects — with attendant lifelong health problems — in the fetuses of those individuals. There are still risk concerns even when taking into consideration the subsequent December 2023 product cancellations, the July 2023 voluntary use cancellation requests, and the registrant’s voluntary cessation of the sale and distribution of DCPA.”

The effects on fetuses can include low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased bone deposition and Intelligence Quotient, and impaired motor skills.

EPA’s emergency order is all encompassing:

“Effective immediately, no person in any state may distribute, sell, offer for sale, hold for sale, ship, deliver for shipment, or receive and (having so received) deliver or offer to deliver to any person any pesticide product containing DCPA. Additionally, in accordance with FIFRA section 6(a)(1), EPA has elected not to permit the continued use of existing stocks, consistent with its policies applicable to cancellations where the Agency has identified significant risk concerns.”

We shouldn’t be throwing EPA flowers even though it’s the first time the agency has used an emergency order since banning DDT more than four decades ago.

Why? Because EPA failed to apply balanced science to prior registrations of DCPA and treated AMVAC with kid gloves.

Here’s the story.

DCPA was first registered in 1958 under the 1947 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. Responsibility for administering FIFRA moved from USDA to the newly created EPA in 1970, and, in 1972, the act was amended adding new environmental and health standards as well as requiring re-registration of older pesticides.

But it wasn’t until 1988 that President Ronald Reagan signed amendments to the FIFRA that clarified pesticide and herbicide re-registration of products first registered before 1984 — including DCPA.

Even so, it was another seven years before EPA re-registered DCPA in 1995 for more than 80 products primarily used to control weeds on ornamental turf and plants, strawberries, seeded and transplanted vegetables, cotton, and field beans. As an aside, the re-registration did not include the original turf application because EPA wasn’t sure if DCPA could cause groundwater contamination as well as the possibility of “carcinogenic risk to children playing on lawns.”

But the dangers of DCPA were quickly coming into focus. In 1999, EPA found DCPA caused thyroid tumors in female and male rats and mice as well as liver tumors in mice and concluded:

“Further experimental work is needed to help determine modes of action of pesticides. More than one mode of action may apply; methods are available to discern each of them. Future studies submitted to the EPA are expected to comply with EPA science policy. Given the present assessment of pesticides as well as an evaluation of other chemicals, it is apparent that antithyroid activity is a common mode of thyroid carcinogenic action in rodents.”

While EPA was of the mind that additional information was necessary, it wasn’t until 2013 that it finally got around to demanding AMVAC provide more information on the herbicide. More than a decade after EPA’s own toxicological study. EPA gave AMVAC until January 2016 to submit roughly 20 studies on DCPA, including one examining thyroid hormone impacts.

But the chemical company dragged its feet on numerous reports and stonewalled the agency on others. EPA also found some studies insufficient to answer its concerns. The thyroid hormone study didn’t show up on EPA’s doorstep until August 2022 — more than six years after the deadline.

EPA could have and should have played hardball with AMVAC. Just how ridiculous was EPA oversight? In June 2022, EPA lead environmental protection specialist Jill Bloom filed a written court statement testifying about AMVAC’s radio silence:

“AMVAC’s actions as to the [data call-in] are abnormally dilatory and repetitive. Following EPA’s denial of AMVAC’s requests to waive certain data requirements, AMVAC followed up with additional waiver requests, which usually provided rationales similar to the originals, often with only minor or insignificant changes. In some cases, AMVAC simply opposed the Agency’s denials and did not offer any additional, substantive rationale. During this cycle of waiver requests and denials, AMVAC did not initiate attempts to satisfy the subject data requirements. In my experience, this cycle of repeated waiver requests is not common for other registrants and registration review cases. Additionally, explicit statements like AMVAC’s that it did not intend to submit certain data required by the DCI are not typical of registrants in general.”

AMVAC has delayed providing EPA information for years. And EPA dragged its feet asking AMVAC for information, and failed to hold the chemical company’s feet to the fire in a timely fashion when it missed deadlines and turned in shoddy work.  For anyone who has followed the pesticide/herbicide re-registration process, this isn’t surprising.

I’m glad DCPA is headed off the market, although I’ll be the first to say AMVAC’s next move could include a lawsuit. And I’ll gladly pay a little bit more for my veggies should it come to that.  But I’ve got to say EPA — the public deserves better.

This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the American Federation of Teachers’ 88th National Convention on July 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas. The American Federation of Teachers was the first labor union to endorse Harris for president since announcing her campaign (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images).

For the nation’s chicken farmers, the last nine months have been breathtaking.

Poultry producers have been gamed, we might as well say plucked, for decades by chicken companies. Ever since the 1948 Chicken of Tomorrow contest, Big Poultry has found ways to increase its profitability at the hands of many individual farmers.

In July of 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order noting the inequities:

“Consolidation in the agricultural industry is making it too hard for small family farms to survive.  Farmers are squeezed between concentrated market power in the agricultural input industries — seed, fertilizer, feed, and equipment suppliers — and concentrated market power in the channels for selling agricultural products. As a result, farmers’ share of the value of their agricultural products has decreased, and poultry farmers, hog farmers, cattle ranchers, and other agricultural workers struggle to retain autonomy and to make sustainable returns.”

But it is one thing to point out the problems and quite another to fix them. What is notable is the way in which the Biden Administration is attempting to level the playing field between chicken farmers and their Big Poultry overlords.

Thus far, USDA has proposed not one, not two, but three separate rules in the Federal Register directly targeting the nation’s chicken companies

Last November, USDA finalized a rule amending the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 by requiring live poultry dealers to disclose to chicken farmers information regarding their tournament systems, including ranking metrics that determine settlement payments. In a nutshell, the rule requires poultry companies to be more transparent regarding what specific investments contract poultry growers might need to make to be successful.

And then earlier this year, USDA proposed the Poultry Grower Payment Systems and Capital Improvement rule. The rule would end a Big Poultry practice of deducting from a chicken farmer’s base pay for work chicken companies deem inadequate. The rule still would allow Big Poultry to hand out performance bonuses, but under the rule those payouts can’t come through withholding money from producers finishing at the bottom of a tournament.

The rule also would require Big Poultry to specifically document how they make fair comparisons between individual growers. The comment period for the rule closed on Aug. 9.

And most recently, USDA has published the proposed Fair and Competitive Livestock and Poultry Markets rule. The rule would amend the Packers and Stockyards Act by specifically defining unfair practices as “conduct that harms market participants and conduct that harms the markets.” The rule would make it far easier for individual chicken farmers to sue Big Poultry without first having to show a “competitive injury.”

Public comment on the rule closes later this month.

It can’t be stressed enough how laser focused the Biden Administration has been on updating the Packers and Stockyards Act in the name of competitive competition and equality. But with inauguration day less than five months away, USDA will need to move with uncommon speed to publish final rules. And it goes without saying that the November elections will have a lot to say about what happens after inauguration day.

I have no doubts that if Donald Trump wins back the presidency that there will be an effort to undo whatever progress the Biden Administration has made to help chicken growers. After all, the first Trump administration withdrew an interim final rule, written by the Obama administration, that would have protected livestock producers from exploitation.

All of which begs the question: Where does presumed Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris stand on agriculture issues, in general, and this frontal assault on Big Poultry, in particular? Up to now agricultural issues have not been in Harris’ wheelhouse.

Harris’ endorsement by the United Farm Workers is illustrative, but not definitive on how she views Big Ag. UFW sees its mission as advocating for “legislative and regulatory reforms for farm workers covering issues such as overtime, heat safety, other worker protections, and pesticides.” In other words, protecting the little guy. Would Harris feel the same?

More telling might be if Harris takes a stand on California Proposition 12, a law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, which set production standards for meat companies wishing to sell pork within the confines of the Golden State. Since Prop 12 became law, Big Ag has been desperately trying to overturn the law, either through further court litigation or through Congress. The Biden Administration supported overturning Prop 12. Would Harris take a different tact, perhaps calling for Prop 12 and similar laws to stand?

No one really knows. You can expect Big Ag to make it job one over the next few months to understand where Harris comes down on all things agriculture. But I’m not sure the industry will have anything close to a full picture of Harris on ag issues before the November election. Not much of a track record and few days to fill in the blanks.

This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

When it comes to applying the First Amendment to state ag-gag laws, the federal courts have generally been singing from the same choir book (Stephen Ausmus/Agricultural Research Service, USDA).

The state of North Carolina and the North Carolina Farm Bureau are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down news-gathering activities that generally have been afforded First Amendment protection.

In its writ of certiorari, North Carolina is asking SCOTUS to specifically uphold two paragraphs of its 2015 Property Protection Act:

North Carolina maintains that the Fourth Circuit of Appeals erred in ruling the PPA does not apply to undercover news-gathering activities.

In People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc. v. N.C. Farm Bureau Federation, Inc the Fourth Circuit found:

“…while we agree that an employer could freely choose to deny entry to journalists who seek to secretly record its inner workings, it does not follow that a State can create ‘new categories of unprotected speech’ to punish those journalists. The First Amendment limits the government; the government does not limit the First Amendment. Even granting that whole categories of speech can go unprotected, the challenged subsections would nonetheless implicate the First Amendment because they discriminate based on speaker and viewpoint.”

North Carolina begs to differ. The state is demanding that the high court create a new constitutional restriction to free speech – specifically, that information collected via undercover investigations in nonpublic areas are unprotected under the First Amendment.

If the U.S. Supreme Court were to take up the case and rule in favor of North Carolina, the decision would give Big Meat the brass ring it has been seeking for decades: An ironclad ag-gag statute that would allow civil prosecution of undercover media investigations that expose animal-welfare violations and other illegal activity.

When it comes to applying the First Amendment to state ag-gag laws, the federal courts have generally been singing from the same choir book.

In Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Wasden, the Ninth Circuit ruled all recordings are constitutionally protected speech, even those collected on nonpublic property without the property owner’s permission.

And in Animal Defense Fund v. Kelly, the Tenth Circuit invalidated a Kansas law that prohibited taking pictures and videos on private property without owner consent on First Amendment grounds that the law unconstitutionally criminalizes only speech that is critical of animal facilities. The court also acknowledged, though, that one day it might have to specifically decide if recordings collected without consent on private property are protected by the First Amendment.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never accepted an ag-gag case for oral argument. The stakes are high. That’s because North Carolina contends the Property Protection Act is not agriculture specific, but rather is applicable to all businesses: “the law here does not apply to a single subject matter. It therefore does not implicate the questions about viewpoint or content discrimination that may arise when States protect only certain kinds of property.”

It is not hyperbole to suggest that if the Property Protection Act is found constitutional, it would have a chilling effect on all kinds of media undercover investigations. Other states would surely pass new legislation based on a PPA blueprint.

At some point, I would imagine a First Amendment v. ag-gag law case will be ripe for Supreme Court judgment. If and when that day comes I think Big Meat will have to jump an extremely high constitutional hurdle. Certainly exemptions for free speech exist – typically based either on content or the location where the free speech takes place.

But when it comes to the First Amendment, ag-gag laws are often found unconstitutional because they fail a strict scrutiny standard. The standard requires a law to be narrowly tailored to the stated purpose of protecting private property rights.

Ag-gag laws also fail because they are not deemed content-neutral. To pass judicial review, an ag-gag law must regulate speech without reference to the speech’s substance and promote a substantial government interest that could not be achieved as effectively without the law.

High bars indeed. Meanwhile, at least 11 states have attempted or succeeded in passing ag-gag legislation. Eight state ag-gag laws have been found by courts to be either unconstitutional or partially unconstitutional.

The SCOTUS needs to provide clarity in what has become a piece-meal smorgasbord of ag-gag law in conflict with the First Amendment. PETA v North Carolina Farm Bureau is probably as good as any.

Columnist Dave DIckey makes the case for the most impactful agriculture story of 2022 (Getty Imaeges).

Whew… what a year.

If you closely follow ag doings, you know there’s plenty to talk about. If not, well let me get you caught up.

First, three stories that fall just a wee bit short of the most impactful agricultural story of 2022.

Waters of the United States

The question of what waters the Environmental Protection Agency can regulate under the authority of the Clean Water Act has been an issue for years. The U.S. Supreme Court in Rapanos v. United States tried to define what exactly in the blue blazes constitutes navigable waters — lakes, bays, rivers, and other relatively large bodies of water. The opinion was a colossal failure. In all there were five — yeah, five can you believe that? — opinions. None captured a majority of the court.

So the Obama EPA looked to change the narrative, writing a new rule that replaced navigable waters with WOTUS. The new rule was a corker, giving EPA oversight of just about any water anywhere in the U.S. — including farmland drainage ditches, seasonal streams, tributaries and even puddle-like depressions. As you might imagine just about everyone that has even a passing interest in agriculture believed the EPA was out of its mind.

And lawsuits came flying in from everywhere. At least 71 plaintiffs. At least 31 states. Nine separate district court challenges. The results were anything but definitive. The U.S. Sixth District Court of Appeals tried to make a play for consolidating the lawsuits but its 1-1-1 ruling further muddied the waters (no pun intended). Meanwhile, court wrangling continued all over the country.

In January of 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court entered the fray. The Supremes decided they would rule on whether the U.S. Sixth District could solely determine WOTUS’ fate. A year later, justices sent the whole mess back to federal district courts.

Writing for the court, Sonia Sotomayor ruled: “Congress has made clear that rules like the WOTUS Rule must be reviewed first in federal district courts.” Uh yeah, a year for that.

Meanwhile in 2020 the Trump EPA tried to redefine WOTUS to something more appealing to agricultural interests.

More than six years after the Obama EPA started the WOTUS debate, this October the Supreme Court heard arguments that hopefully will fix the gosh-awful, steaming-pile-of-spaghetti ruling in Rapanos. And in case you were wondering, the Biden EPA is right now in the process of issuing a revised definition of WOTUS. It’s a very important issue for agriculture. But I don’t think it will be solved anytime soon.

Climate change

In any given year I’m inclined to write several columns on issues surrounding climate change; some years I’ve deemed it either the top agricultural story of the year or potential top issue of a new year. See here and here. Climate change also got plenty of attention in 2020 columns — here, here, here and here. Another column in 2021 and two more this year — here and here.

I once wrote it might be possible to justify writing about climate change 24/7, and on the merits of the issue I still feel that way, but I’ve also come to learn that while there’s been plenty of talk all around the world regarding the need to fix the atmosphere, and pinky-swear promises to do what it takes … well, all those world climate change get-togethers are not getting it done. The latest United Nations report issued in October laid out the unvarnished truth that holding average world temperatures 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100 is a pipe dream. Heck, there’s a chance it could happen in the next five years.

Whoa, wait there, cowboy. What about the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act? I’ll concede it is the most significant attempt to date by the U.S. to do something about climate change. The act contains $369 billion in new spending to cut greenhouse gas emissions and invest in new energy technologies. That ain’t peanuts. It’s also not enough. We are deluding ourselves if we expect that Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and India are going to meet their promised carbon-dioxide emission targets. Truly.

We should not be of the opinion that all is lost. A lot can happen with new technologies between now and the end of the century. But finding optimism in 2022 has been hard to come by.

California’s Proposition 12

This story feels like it’s been kicking around f-o-r-e-v-e-r. See here, here, here, and here.

This October, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Proposition 12, which seeks to require any entity wishing to sell pork in the Golden State to give each sow 24 square feet of living space. Note that means anywhere sows are kept. Like Iowa and North Carolina.

The high court likely will dive deep into the weeds of the U.S. Commerce Clause, which is supposed to fairly regulate interstate trade. A ruling either way could add new interpretative layers that could have real world impact on consumer pocketbooks.

Most impactful ag story of 2022: West Virginia v. EPA

And now for the big enchilada. It came from the Supreme Court and probably was somewhat lost in all the other huge social and individual liberty decisions. I’m talking about West Virginia v. EPA. See here and here.

Narrowly, the decision struck down an obsolete and never enacted Environmental Protection Agency plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions through generation shifting. But the opinion cripples federal regulators’ ability to protect the public. Chief Justice John G. Roberts’ majority decision ruled EPA could not regulate the energy grid through generation shifting because the Clean Air Act enacted by Congress did not specifically give the agency specific authority to do so:

“Agencies have only those powers given to them by Congress, and ‘enabling legislation’ is generally not an ‘open book to which the agency [may] add pages and change the plot line.’ We presume that ‘Congress intends to make major policy decisions itself, not leave those decisions to agencies.’ Thus, in certain extraordinary cases, both separation of powers principles and a practical understanding of legislative intent make us ‘reluctant to read into ambiguous statutory text’ the delegation claimed to be lurking there. To convince us otherwise, something more than a merely plausible textual basis for the agency action is necessary. The agency instead must point to ‘clear congressional authorization’ for the power it claims.”

For the newly minted conservative court that, let’s be frank, is highly suspicious of the workings of the administrative branch, the case served as the perfect vehicle to elevate the major questions doctrine.

The Supremes’ 1984 ruling in Chevron U.S.A. Incorporated v. National Resources Defense Council established a rule of judicial deference to federal agencies to broadly interpret Congressional intent in crafting rules and regulations unless such rules were not “reasonable” or “permissible.”

The Supreme Court 2000 decision FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation articulated how the major questions doctrine should operate. The Supreme Court ruled that statutes should be examined in context to see whether “Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue.” Justices could consider subsequent legislation on the issue at hand. But it went even further, ruling that in “extraordinary cases” the court should hesitate and be guided by common sense of the likelihood that Congress would “delegate a policy decision of such economic and political magnitude to an administrative agency.”

The high court concluded FDA v. Brown and Williamson indeed was “extraordinary” and that Congress did not explicitly give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate nicotine products. Unfortunately, nowhere in the ruling did justices specifically articulate what constitutes “extraordinary.” Since then, the major questions doctrine has played an increasing role in Supreme Court rulings.

Prior to West Virginia v. EPA, the current high court used the major questions doctrine to limit the Biden administration’s response to COVID-19 — first blocking a Centers for Disease Control Prevention moratorium on residential evictions and then stopping a vaccine or test mandate on large employers.

The Supreme Court more fully forms the major questions doctrine in West Virginia v. EPA, however, giving justices and judges far too much power to essentially legislate from the bench. And the risk going forward is that federal courts will gradually lower the bar for what constitutes extraordinary circumstances to take up major doctrine issues. Given the current political climate (is it even possible to claw back democracy to the model prior to 2016?) it’s entirely possible the Supreme Court’s philosophical bent will do real harm to the public because Congress is incapable of response.

It’s easy to imagine maverick judges ruling any number of agricultural disputes — food safety and security, air/water pollution, and immigration immediately come to mind — as “extraordinary” and ripe for judgment when, in fact, neutral analysis might suggest otherwise. And it goes without saying that the major question doctrine will be a go to argue for both plaintiffs and defendants in a staggering number of lawsuits going forward, and not just in agricultural cases.

The huge can of worms the high court unleashed on the nation, however, with West Virginia v. EPA makes it the most impactful agricultural story of 2022.

Bread at the Schnuck’s grocery story in Columbia marked as permitted to be purchased through Missouri's WIC program, which provides supplemental foods, nutrition education and referrals to health care, at no cost, to low-income pregnant, breastfeeding and postpartum women, infants, and children up to age 5 who are determined to be at nutritional risk (Jason Hancock/Missouri Independent).

The Food and Drug Administration really wants you to believe that healthy is as healthy does.  To that end, the FDA wants grocery shoppers to know with some degree of confidence that when they buy processed foods emblazoned with a “healthy” label, by golly, it’s healthy eating.  Pinky swear.

But as it turns out, trying to determine just what foods are truly healthy and those that are healthy wannabes is a lot tougher than it looks.

In 1990, Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, which directed the FDA to fix what was a relatively hodgepodge U.S. food labeling system. Between 1990 and 1994, FDA established new guidelines including a nutrition facts label for all packaged foods.

In 1994, FDA added guidelines food producers needed to meet in order to use “healthy” on packaging, including limits for total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium. Foods also were required to provide at least 10 percent of the daily value of at least one nutrient – fiber, protein, iron, calcium, vitamin C, or vitamin A. The guideline was moot on added sugars.

Looking through today’s lens, the 1994 guideline was a disaster. Obviously non-healthy foods like sweetened yogurt, white bread, fat-free pudding, and sugary cereals qualified for a healthy label simply because they were low in fat.

And processed foods high in healthy nuts or avocado oil? Nope. In 2015, the FDA sent a letter to the Kind Snacks food company demanding they drop healthy claims from a number of energy bar labels found to exceed 1 gram of saturated fat. Specifically, the FDA demanded Kind remove labels claiming “antioxidant rich,” “good source of fiber,” or “no trans fats.”

Kind fought back with a petition drive to change how FDA defined healthy. That got the FDA’s attention. In 2016, FDA issued a proposed rule change, had some hearings … and then the issue fizzled.

Until now. Last month, the FDA woke up from its six-year slumber to announce new labeling guidelines defining healthy. Now posted on the Federal Register, the proposed rule would  require packaged/processed foods labeled as “healthy” to:

·   Contain minimum amounts of food from one or more of the food groups or subgroups recommended by the Dietary Guidelines, like fruits, vegetables or dairy.

·  Follow specific updated limits for certain nutrients, like saturated fat, sodium and a new standard for added sugars.

FDA also is developing a symbol that food manufactures can place on qualified healthy food products.

Generally nutritionists have reacted favorably to the new proposed FDA rule. And yes, it is a whole lot better than the 1994 standard. But will it work? Will it get more people grabbing “healthy” foods off the grocery shelves? To say unquestionably yes I’m afraid requires a leap of faith.

First off, compliance with the proposed rule is voluntary. Food producers may decide not to label their FDA approved healthy foods. And shoppers are almost certain to wrongly believe that any foods without a “healthy” label are unhealthy. (Let the lawsuits begin).

Moreover, defining healthy is not one size fits all. What is healthy to a world-class professional soccer player is going to be entirely different from someone dealing with type 2 diabetes.

And the term “healthy” is subjective. Put 10 people in a room and ask them to define “healthy foods.” Some might say it’s something without chemicals or preservatives. Others might say natural or organic food. Still others might have another interpretation.

Expect otherwise FDA-approved “healthy” products still to be loaded with additives. Yikes.

It’s not far-fetched to think the FDA — which says about 5% of all packaged foods are currently labeled “healthy” — really has its work cut out for it.

Truth be told, the FDA would have a better chance of meeting a healthy is as healthy does standard if it could get the public to buy more unprocessed foods like fruit, vegetables, fish, dairy, eggs, grains, and nuts.

If the FDA wanted to truly get serious about changing what Americans eat it could go ballistic and consider warning labels like those used in Brazil to discourage shoppers from buying junk food. Needless to say, U.S. food companies would do anything to prevent the FDA from going down that road.

The FDA is taking public comment till Dec. 28. It will be interesting to see what processed food makers will have to say. Nonetheless, color me skeptical that the proposed rule will have much of an impact on American eating habits.

This commentary was originally published by Investigate Midwest, an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Its mission is to serve the public interest by exposing dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism. Visit online at www.investigatemidwest.org.

In September, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced his agency is investing $2.8 billion in a carrot and stick approach to get farmers to adopt climate-smart production practices.(Jared Strong/Iowa Capital Dispatch).

Climate change believers by and large say that for decades Big Agriculture has spewed huge amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. And they’re not wrong.

EPA estimates that agriculture accounted for 11.2% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2020. So it’s quite obvious that in order to combat climate change the feds and state governments must begin to rein in ag pollution.

Easier said than done. But ya got to go with the cards you’re dealt.

So it was refreshing to see in September USDA announcing it’s investing $2.8 billion in a carrot and stick approach to get farmers to adopt climate-smart production practices.

USDA’s shiny new Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities is supposed to “expand markets for America’s climate-smart commodities, leverage the greenhouse gas benefits of climate-smart commodity production, and provide direct, meaningful benefits to production agriculture, including for small and underserved producers.”

You got that? Yeah it’s a little hazy. But the core of the idea is to pay farmers, ranchers, foresters and other land management type folk for land stewardship that results in, among other things, cleaner water and air. A noble idea right?

But on Sept. 14, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced who is getting the first 70 project grants. And things feel a little less noble. Among the lead partners:

Iowa Soybean Association $90 million, Archer-Daniels-Midland Company $90 million, USA Rice Federation Inc. $80 million, National Sorghum Producers Association $65 million, Tyson Foods Inc. $60 million, Blue Diamond Growers $45 million and Dairy Farmers of America $45 million.

The program might end up a roaring success. It’s fair to be skeptical, though, about handing the likes of ADM and Tyson Foods baskets of cash. ADM has received hundreds of millions of tax dollars to create a carbon-capture program in Decatur, Illinois, that is vastly underperforming when measured by stated goals. And Tyson Foods is one of the most fined Big Ag companies on the planet.

Jason Davison, senior food and agriculture campaigner at Friends of the Earth — a nonprofit advocacy group — posted on its website that “USDA handing $60 million taxpayer dollars to Tyson Foods to create ‘climate-smart’ beef would be like EPA giving a $60 million grant to Exxon to create ‘green’ gasoline. It’s a massive corporate giveaway, and it’s unacceptable.”

That’s one fear — a significant portion of the project grants will be used for greenwashing.

That isn’t all. The federal government has a miserable track record when it comes to accountability. All too often the Government Accountability Office is reporting how the feds failed to properly disperse funding. Recently, for example, GAO reported the Farm Service Agency improperly handed out Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) payments to producers with incomplete documentation. Yeah.

USDA is hoping that project implementation will lead to sequestering more than 50 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That’s like taking 10 million passenger vehicles off the road for a year. I’m rooting that most of this works. And farmers certainly have a role to play in combating climate change.

Keep your fingers crossed. Maybe carry around your climate friendly four-leaf clover. And hope Big Ag and the feds don’t find a way to mess this up.

This commentary was originally published by Investigate Midwest, an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Its mission is to serve the public interest by exposing dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism. Visit online at www.investigatemidwest.org.

An aerial view from a drone shows a combine being used to harvest the soybeans in a field at the Bardole & Son's Ltd farm on Oct. 14, 2019 in Rippey, Iowa. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

This commentary was originally published by Investigate Midwest. 

For the last several years Big Agriculture has tried, with some degree of success, to bamboozle the public into believing it’s all in when it comes to combating climate change when in fact it ain’t.

It’s nothing new. Big corporations have been playing the misinformation game for a long time.

Big Tobacco spent billions of dollars to saturate the public with propaganda that denied, deflected, and obfuscated the health risks of smoking. It wasn’t until 2017 that a court order required Big Tobacco to air television spots proclaiming smoking kills. But even then Big Tobacco wiggled off the U.S. Justice Department hook by winning concessions. Among them included not having to admit the industry deliberately lied to the public in promotional and advertising campaigns or show lurid pictures of what smoking does to people’s lungs and body.

Big Oil took the Big Tobacco playbook and ran with it, efforting to deny the impact of burning fossil fuels on the environment. In 1998, the American Petroleum Institute created the Global Climate Science Communications Team. The plan called for a coordinated effort from Big Oil and pro oil activists to single out the media, demanding in the name of balance they report on uncertainties in climate science. Big Oil provided their own contrarian scientists as expert media sources so that the public would learn the “truth” that climate change was nothing more than a left wing hoax.

In short, by demanding journalistic balance Big Oil turned climate change into a partisan issue.

It was a brilliant PR strategy. In the name of journalistic balance the media were played as suckers, regurgitating Big Oil spin on climate change with little or no push back.

Polls in the early 1990s showed that roughly 80% of Americans accepted human involvement in climate change and that something needed to be done. A 2010 Gallup poll indicated that just 55% of Americans thought climate change was a threat.

Big Oil also added a few chapters to the Tobacco PR playbook including making the public believe the corporations responsible for the release of massive greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere were themselves pure and wholesome. For example: in 1998, British Petroleum Amoco shortened its name to BP and in 2000 rolled out its green and yellow sun logo. BP wanted the public to believe the company was leading the charge into a greener world but by and large that hasn’t happened.

Now it’s Big Ag – mostly led by Big Meat – looking to convince they are all that and a bag of chips when it comes to fighting climate change.

A United Nations 2006 report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” listed numerous global impacts that could be traced directly to Big Meat. In response, Big Meat has spent billions of dollars trying to convince the public that its environmental footprint isn’t responsible for climate change.

And Big Meat, just as Big Oil had before, targeted the media to do its dirty work. Big Meat also roped federal climate change deniers and skeptics into its scheme.

Between 2000 and 2019, nine of the top ten U.S. meat and dairy companies spent $26 million largely supporting Republican candidates who were likely to oppose climate change lawmaking,

But one of Big Meat’s favorite ways of denying its culpability in climate change is greenwashing.

Look no farther than the Big Meat behemoth JBS as a prime example. In the spring of 2021, JBS took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times proclaiming that the company will achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. The promise is long on spin and short on details.

And JBS isn’t alone when it comes to greenwashing. Meat and dairy want to keep lawmakers focused on sustainability campaigns designed to downplay impacts of carbon dioxide and methane while shouting to the rafters renewable energy efforts to run their operations. Big Meat wants Congress to know farmers and ranchers are increasing food production and using fewer resources.

But what Big Ag is desperate to keep secret from Congress and the rest of us is just how invested the nation’s food producers are in green technologies. The Security and Exchange Commission is floating rules that would require large publicly-traded companies – including Big Ag – to reveal the impacts of climate change on their businesses.

One proposed rule would require Big Ag to report to the SEC all Scope 3 greenhouse gasses they emit directly from their operations. Scope 3 emissions include energy purchased and energy from their supply chains. Scope 3 emissions account for roughly 90 percent of all Big Ag greenhouse gas emissions but it largely goes unreported to the federal government.

In order to comply with the SEC rule Big Ag would need to provide an accurate assessment of the energy consumption of the farmers they work with. For Big Ag, that’s a bridge too far. Since at least March, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Pork Producers Council have been twisting SEC staff and lawmakers’ arms to get Scope 3 reporting requirements tossed on the trash heap.

The Farm Bureau went so far as to publish a post on its website, saying the disclosure rule would put farmers out of business. Big Ag lobbyists and sympathetic congressmen also sent the White House a letter, claiming to President Joe Biden that Scope 3 reporting would somehow limit farmer access to credit. But emission reporting is highly unlikely to impact farmers and ranchers.

The Farm Bureau and farmer-led commodity trade associations are threatening to sue to prevent finalization of the SEC Scope 3 rule suggesting the magnitude of the disclosure requirements requires congressional legislation in accordance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s major questions ruling this past term in EPA v. West Virginia.

So it’s fair to say Big Ag is in an all out blitz to prevent transparency when it comes to its energy consumption as it relates to climate change. The why is unclear.

Congress needs to ask.

Drag the heads of Tyson, JBS, Smithfield, ADM, Cargill and a few more Big Ag CEOs into a congressional fact-finding hearing. And if they won’t come voluntarily, subpoena them.

Far too long Big Ag has misled the public when it comes to fighting climate change.

That must end. Now.

China's WH Group purchased Smithfield Foods – the largest producer of U.S. pork – in 2013 for $4.7 billion (Scott Olson/Getty Images).

This commentary was originally published by Investigate Midwest.

Anybody who has kept an eye on agricultural doings knows that consolidation is occurring at an alarming rate. In the past couple of decades, competition between agricultural giants has become a fading memory. Even this short list is staggering:

• China’s WH Group purchased Smithfield Foods – the largest producer of U.S. pork – in 2013 for a steal-of-a-deal $4.7 billion.
• Brazilian meat-producer JBS purchased a majority stake in Pilgrim’s Pride for $800 million in 2009.
• German pharmaceutical Bayer AG purchased St. Louis-based Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018.
• ChemChina purchased Swiss-based seed and herbicide producer Syngenta for $43 billion in 2017. At the time, Syngenta owned a number of U.S. seed and chemical companies that accounted for roughly 6 percent of soybean seed sales and 10 percent of corn seed sales.

What do all these splashy headline acquisitions have in common? All are foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies. All well reported and documented.

It isn’t just U.S. corporations that foreign companies are snapping up like Kmart Blue Light specials. Foreign acquisition of U.S. farmland has become big business. And the federal government’s tally likely suffers from a huge undercount due to a joke of a law.

The Agriculture Foreign Investment Disclosure Act was passed in 1978 to keep track of foreign land acquisition of U.S. farmland. AFIDA requires:

• Foreign persons who acquire, transfer, or hold interests in agricultural land to report the transactions and holdings to the Secretary of Agriculture.
• USDA’s Farm Service Agency to maintain for public inspection all reporting forms and related correspondence.
• Penalties to be assessed against foreign persons who fail to accurately and timely report.

Foreign entities acquiring at least a 10% interest in U.S. agricultural land (defined as a minimum of 10 acres or land capable of producing annual revenue of $1,000 or more from farming) are required to file with USDA a FSA-153 form, which lists among other things the type of owners, total acreage, value of the land, and its geographical location.

Due to either neglect or intentional misdirection of filers, many records are inaccurate or incomplete.

USDA has no interest or desire to monitor what’s going on. Back in 2017, AFIDA program manager Lesa Johnson made the stunning admission that USDA does not review FSA-153s for completeness or accuracy.  Not much has changed since then.

In its latest 2020 report, FSA says foreign interests held an interest in 2.9% of all privately held U.S. agricultural land. That’s 37.6 million acres, more than all the acres in the state of Iowa.  Since 2015, foreign holdings have increased annually by an average of nearly 2.2 million acres.

And remember, the true numbers are likely higher – perhaps much higher.

Why should the public care about this?

The 2017 Census of Agriculture reported the average age of U.S. farmers was 57.5.  That’s almost 10 years older than reported in the 1945 Census. Meanwhile, it’s become cost-prohibitive for many young people interested in farming to enter the industry. Not to mention that U.S. agricultural land slowly has been dwindling due in large part to industrialization and urbanization – from more than 1.15 billion acres in 1950 to 895 million acres in 2021.

So you have an aging farmer population that one day in the not-too-distant future will exit farming in droves and younger want-to-be-farmers unable to come up with the capital to buy farmland. The National Young Farmers Coalition is predicting two-thirds of all U.S. farmland will be on the auction block over the next decade.

Foreign entities are all too happy to take advantage of the opportunity … all under the less than watchful eye of USDA.

Admittedly, on a macro scale foreign U.S. land acquisitions do not currently threaten food security, which among our nation’s families is primarily driven by poverty.

But what happens in the future if foreign investors continue to buy more farmland? Not to mention a bunch of other interests including U.S. corporation funds, pension funds, land development companies, and wealthy investors also wanting to own farmland.

The feds need to consider all these threats to long-term food security. And that starts with a full understanding of the scope of the problem including foreign land acquisition.

Efforts in the past to strengthen or rewrite AFIDA have gone nowhere in Congress.

Last month, Wisconsin Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley introduced the Farmland Security Act. The act would require USDA to report to Congress foreign investments of farm land, including analysis of the impact on food supply, rural communities and family farms. USDA also would be required to establish a real-time database as foreign farmland acquisitions are filed. While the bill is not perfect, passage would be a step in the right direction.

Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Our mission is to serve the public interest by exposing dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism.Visit us online at www.investigatemidwest.org