Tag: farmers

Pesticides poison nearly half of world’s farmers each year – study

Nearly half of the world’s estimated 934 million farmers suffer unintentional pesticide poisoning each year, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Frontiers in Public Health.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), analyzed 214 publications from 2006 to 2023 alongside World Health Organization mortality data. It estimated up to 433 million cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning annually, affecting around 46% of agricultural workers worldwide. About 11,000 cases are fatal each year.

The burden falls disproportionately on the Global South, researchers found.

South and Southeast Asia and eastern Africa recorded the highest estimated numbers of cases. In Burkina Faso, nearly 84% of farmers are estimated to suffer acute pesticide poisoning each year.

“Behind these staggering numbers are farmers, workers and families paying a terrible human price for pesticide exposure,” PAN India Executive Director Jayakumar Chelaton said. “This research exposes a crisis that can no longer be ignored.”

Keep reading

4 Giant Pesticide Companies Also Control Global Seed Market — That’s Bad for Consumers and Farmers

As the number of seed companies, which are also pesticide companies, consolidates through mergers, farmers face challenges associated with fewer seed choices, higher prices, less diversity and proprietary genetically engineered (GE) organisms.

To combat these problems, a nationwide action has been launched to tell members of the U.S. Congress to cosponsor the Fair Seeds for Farmers Act (H.R. 9681 and S. 5104).

A contributor to the high cost of food, seeds as an input account for up to 25% of farmers’ operating budgets. Four companies, the “Big 4,” control 51% of the global seed market — and they are the same four companies that control 62.3% of the agricultural chemical market — Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta (owned by ChemChina) and BASF.

The top four companies selling genetically modified seeds are the same. This concentration in the industry leads to higher costs and less choice for farmers, and less research into varieties suitable for organic systems.

The Fair Seeds for Farmers Act attempts to reduce these impacts. A 2023 U.S. Department of Agriculture report (USDA), “More and Better Choices for Farmers: Promoting Fair Competition and Innovation in Seeds and Other Agricultural Inputs, summarizes many of the problems.”

Farmers in the U.S. have not always needed to buy seed. The federal government — through the Patent Office until 1862 and the USDA thereafter until 1924 — mailed seeds free of charge to farmers throughout the country.

USDA collected seeds (germplasm) from farmers who experimented with varieties to meet regional needs, saved the seeds and shared them. In 1924, responding to pressure from seed companies, the practice ended.

Further support for the commercialization of seed production came from the Plant Patent Act (PPA) of 1930, applying to asexual reproduction of plants (e.g., grafting scions, cuttings, and runners), and the Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) of 1970, applying to seeds.

Under the PVPA, plant breeders were granted an exclusive right to propagate and sell their new varieties for 20 years, but those varieties were available to researchers who could use them for breeding new varieties, and farmers could save seeds to replant (and, until 1994, sell).

A number of Supreme Court decisions from 1980 to 2001 resulted in utility patents being issued for seeds and plants. Utility patents (“patents for invention” or “patents”), which can be issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for inventions that are novel, nonobvious and useful, apply to all users and can restrict seed saving, research and breeding.

Thus, patents eliminate resources from the pool of genetics available to plant breeders for improving crops. If breeders are allowed to use patented plants for breeding, they are often subject to restrictive licensing agreements.

Organic farmers can lose certified crops when genes (pollen) drift from GE plants. But they and others are also subject to lawsuits for patent infringement from the large seed/pesticide/biotech companies.

Keep reading

Democrat Agriculture Secretary Nominee Says Farming ‘Isn’t That Hard,’ Farmers Work ‘Only a Few Weeks’ a Year

Democrat Chris Jones, who is running for Iowa secretary of agriculture, was rebuked by Iowa Republicans after saying farmers are “wealthy,” grain farming is “not that hard,” and farmers are “only working a few weeks out of the year.”

The remarks were highlighted Tuesday by Iowa Field Report, which posted video from a 2021 interview Jones gave at the Iowa Ideas Conference, hosted by the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

“And a lot of this grain farming now, it’s not that hard. They’re only working a few weeks out of the year,” Jones said.

“These farmers might be industrious and they might be ingenious and you know all these other adjectives you want to say about it, but the truth is, you know, a lot of them are millionaires,” Jones continued. “They’re really wealthy guys. They’re making three times as much as the average Iowan, and a lot of this grain farming now-it’s not that hard. They’re only working a few weeks out of the year.”

Iowa Field Report said that earlier in the same interview, Jones claimed Iowa farmers are all “wealthy, older white guys.”

Incumbent Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, whom Jones is seeking to unseat, denounced the remarks.

Keep reading

American Farmers Shouldn’t Need Permission from the US Army to Grow Crops

For nearly a decade, California farmer Jack LaPant was the target of an investigation and prosecution by the United States Army, who alleged that LaPant violated the Clean Water Act by growing a wheat crop to feed his cattle. Earlier this year, LaPant was able to settle the case to get the Army out of his hair, but the settlement required him to give the Army more than $1 million in money and land value. This, despite the fact that the government never proved a single allegation in court.

Most of us today take for granted that we’ll be able to get the food we want when we go to the grocery store or our favorite restaurant. But the reality is that a safe, plentiful, and affordable food supply depends on people like Jack LaPant—a fact we should never forget.

Fewer Americans make their living in agriculture these days, which means more workers can devote their time and energy to other productive pursuits.

Modern farming produces substantial food surplus, which is an essential condition for an economy to diversify and grow. Less than 2 percent of the American population is now engaged in producing the food that nourishes the rest of us, thanks in large part to mechanization, technological advances, improved land and crop management practices, and other welcome innovations.

But let’s be clear: despite those advances, farming is still demanding, difficult work, and we should be thankful for those who make it their mission to feed the rest of us. Further, it is no coincidence that free economies produce the greatest food surplus. Centrally planned economies tend to produce famine. It is necessary that those few who do farm have their property and economic rights protected. If they aren’t safeguarded, we will all pay the price alongside them.

Jack LaPant decided 45 years ago to leave his steady power company job and take up farming. Since LaPant had no personal or family background in agriculture, this was an unusual career move, to say the least.

He moved his family from Oakland to a remote valley in the Sierras and learned to work the land. Over the decades, he built a living for himself and his children, while contributing to the food supply that sustains the rest of us. Then he found himself at odds with the US government.

The concern in LaPant’s case goes beyond the effects on the farm operations themselves. Heavy-handed and ruinous regulation at the hands of our nation’s military is a threat to the food surplus that we depend upon as part of the foundation of our modern life.

Remember that more than 98 percent of us have the freedom to do whatever our talents and opportunities allow because of the less than 2 percent of Americans who produce the food that the rest of us need. That imbalance marks a radical difference from the rest of the world—globally, about 60 percent of the population is dedicated to farming. In many less-developed countries, that’s not because farming is the path people choose—it’s because they have no choice at all if they don’t want to starve.

Keep reading

SBA, USDA To Combat ‘Regulatory Abuse’ Lawfare Aimed At Farmers And Ranchers

The Small Business Administration (SBA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have signed a memorandum to counter lawfare targeting rural communities, ranchers, farmers, and small businesses.

Lawfare refers to the strategic use of legal proceedings to hinder targets. The SBA’s agreement with the USDA gives producers a “direct line to report the regulations and rules driving up costs and impacting productivity,” the agency said in a July 2 statement.

It also enables the SBA and the USDA to “identify broader patterns of regulatory abuse to advance lasting deregulatory reform.”

The USDA will run a centralized portal that will receive lawfare complaints involving federal agencies, which will be shared with the SBA’s Office of the National Ombudsman. Any complaint involving the USDA will be handled by the department, while other complaints will be referred by the SBA to the appropriate agencies.

Under the agreement, the SBA is authorized to analyze complaint data to identify recurring lawfare practices, enforcement, or regulatory issues that are assessed as abusive or disproportionate. This is expected to provide insight that would guide deregulatory action for broader reforms.

In a July 2 X post, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the agreement between the USDA and the SBA lets “producers get back to what they do best: feeding, clothing, and fueling America.”

“Family farms should not have to spend time and resources they don’t have fighting crushing regulations or costly legal battles waged by radical anti-ag ‘environmentalists,’ whether they are inside or outside the government,” she said.

In its statement, the SBA said the memorandum is in line with a January 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump, “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation.”

Trump said in the order that the “ever-expanding morass” of complicated federal regulations was creating “substantial restraint” on economic growth and hampering the country’s global competitiveness.

For each new regulation issued by any agency, Trump ordered that at least 10 previous regulations be identified for elimination.

Commenting on the memorandum, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said: “This partnership with the SBA creates clear pathways for redress, ensures fairness in enforcement, and demonstrates that Washington stands with, not against, the hardworking Americans who sustain our country.

“Through the USDA Lawfare Portal and interagency collaboration, we are delivering real protection under the Farmer and Rancher Freedom Framework.”

The Farmer and Rancher Freedom Framework is a plan aimed at protecting and preserving American agriculture while ending “onerous regulations” and the weaponization of government against ranchers and farmers, according to a Feb. 11 statement from the USDA.

The plan seeks to defend farmers and ranchers from politically motivated enforcement actions, protect agricultural lands from unnecessary federal projects, and remove burdensome rules that stifle productivity.

It also seeks to reform environmental laws to strike a balance between conservation and common sense.

Keep reading

Big Corporations Get Rich From Their Secret Seed Patents — Taxpayers and Farmers Pay the Price

The U.S. is one of only a handful of countries that allows companies to hold patents on plant varieties.

As a result, a small number of corporations can — and do — suppress competition in the seed industry, stifle innovation and turn taxpayer subsidies intended for farmers into corporate profits.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has found that two companies control more than 70% of U.S. corn and soybean seed sales, and the top four cottonseed companies control nearly 94% of that market.

In a May court filing in a legal dispute between two U.S. seed companies, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said patents on seeds are obstructing competition and research in the agriculture industry.

As researchers who work on plant breeding and seed policy, we have seen how that plays out.

When huge companies assert their patents, smaller businesses and public plant breeders, who often lack the legal resources to fight back, are frequently dissuaded from conducting research and development that might actually not be illegal at all.

And a lack of competition allows dominant companies — not always based in the U.S. — to collect large sums of taxpayer money that Congress allocated in hopes it would help farmers, not shareholders’ and executives’ bottom lines.

Keep reading

We Are 6 Months From Global Food Shortages Because Farmers Are Facing A Quadruple Whammy Crisis

We have never faced anything quite like this. Diesel fuel and fertilizer have become far more expensive as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, and extreme weather is playing havoc with crops all over the planet. Here in the United States, we just experienced the driest first three months of a year in recorded history. No, that isn’t an exaggeration. Now a “Super El Niño” is coming, and that means that drought conditions are going to get even worse in many areas of the world. The “Super El Niño” of 1877-1878 resulted in widespread droughts that killed more than 50 million people, and now we are being warned that the upcoming “Super El Niño” could be even worse. Our farmers have never faced a “perfect storm” of this magnitude, and global food production is going to be way down in the months ahead.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization is publicly warning that a severe global food crisis could strike about 6 months from now if something really dramatic does not happen…

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz could trigger a severe global food price crisis within six to 12 months unless governments act quickly, the Food and Agriculture Organization warned Wednesday.

Decisions now by farmers and governments on fertilizer use, imports, financing and crop choices will determine whether food prices spike later this year or in early 2027, the agency said.

I don’t know what national governments around the world are supposed to do.

They can’t create fertilizer out of thin air.

Thanks to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, millions of farmers all over the northern hemisphere didn’t get the fertilizer that they needed for the spring planting season.

UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo is telling us that as a result “many places in the world will have problems of food shortage” once harvest season arrives…

Food shortages are expected to hit many parts of the world from September or October following a fertilizer production plunge, the U.N. Development Program’s head said on Monday.

“In September, (or) October, many places in the world will have problems of food shortage,” as agricultural production is expected to be much lower following the fertilizer production slump resulting from high oil prices amid Middle East conflicts, UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo said in an interview in Tokyo.

Even if fertilizer is available, many farmers simply cannot afford it.

In fact, one recent survey discovered that 70 percent of U.S. farmers could not afford to buy all of the fertilizer that they needed for the spring planting season because it has become so expensive.

Meanwhile, diesel has become painfully expensive as well.

Keep reading

Corn Belt Politicians Are Using High Gas Prices To Push Even More Carveouts for Ethanol

With the average price of gasoline in the U.S. reaching its highest level since the start of the Iran war, lawmakers are thinking about giving energy producers special treatment to supposedly cut costs at the pump.

As part of the negotiations over the Farm Bill, which is expected to be voted on by the House of Representatives this week, a bipartisan group of Corn Belt lawmakers is proposing a measure to authorize the sale of E15—gasoline with an ethanol content up to 15 percent—year-round. This fuel is typically not allowed to be sold in the summer months because it evaporates easily, which contributes to air pollution and smog. (The Trump administration waived requirements last month to allow for E15 to be sold this summer, citing high gas prices.)

The proposed amendment would also limit blending exemptions for small refineries under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)—the federal law that requires refiners and fuel importers to ensure that a certain percentage of the transportation fuel sold in the U.S. comes from renewable fuels, the most common of which is ethanol. Compliance with the RFS is estimated to cost refineries about $70 million in both 2026 and 2027, according to the energy consulting firm Turner, Mason & Company.  

“At a time when consumers are acutely sensitive to energy prices, this amendment represents a pragmatic solution that balances energy affordability, rural economic strength, and regulatory certainty,” said a coalition of agricultural and energy groups in a support letter for the measure. Additionally, its reforms to RFS exemptions “will help restore transparency and predictability for all parties subject” to that law. 

It doesn’t seem like “all parties” are on board. 

Last week, the National Corn Growers Association published a press release calling out a group of “oil corporations” for attempting to “derail legislation that lowers fuel prices.” 

“There is a tiny minority of major energy corporations – like Delek U.S. Inc., Cenovus Energy, CVR Energy, HF Sinclair, Parr Pacific Holdings and Suncor Energy Inc. – that are masquerading as small refineries to get Renewable Fuel Standard exemptions they don’t need,” said the association’s president, Jed Bower. “Their greedy actions are holding up legislation that would help farmers who are struggling during tough economic times.”

Keep reading

‘We’ve Addicted Our Farmers’ to Glyphosate, RFK Jr. Tells Joe Rogan

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called glyphosate a “poison” embedded in America’s food supply, even as he backed President Donald Trump’s executive order expanding its domestic production.

Speaking Feb. 27 on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Kennedy emphasized his decades-long fight against pesticides. “Pesticides are poison. They’re designed to kill all life. It’s not a good thing to have in your food,” he said.

Yet he defended the president’s executive order as a national security measure.

Trump signed the order in February to boost U.S. production of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018 and now faces tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging Roundup exposure caused cancer.

Hours after the order, Kennedy told The New York Times, “Donald Trump’s executive order puts America first where it matters most — our defense readiness and our food supply.” Days later, Kennedy posted on X, explaining his position.

On Rogan’s show, Kennedy said industry reports show that 99% of U.S. glyphosate supplies come from China. U.S. Department of Defense officials warned that dependence poses “an extreme national security vulnerability,” he said. A supply disruption “could literally cut off our food supply overnight and cripple the country.”

“The president was dealing with national security,” Kennedy said.

The executive order also grants legal immunity to domestic manufacturers compelled under the Defense Production Act of 1950 to produce glyphosate-related products. The law allows the federal government to require companies to produce materials deemed necessary for national security.

Bayer is the only company manufacturing glyphosate in the U.S.

Kennedy criticized the liability protections. “It’s not something that I was particularly happy with. Let me put it that way mildly,” he said.

He warned that immunity “takes away all incentive for them to make the product safer.”

Keep reading

Bill Maher Tells John Mellencamp Trump Helped Farmers – Far-Left Rocker Immediately Changes the Subject

Classical liberal Bill Maher is never going to be mistaken for a conservative by anyone within that ideological circle.

That is doubly true for far-left Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee John Mellencamp.

Yet, when the two met on Monday for Maher’s “Club Random” podcast, there was, perhaps surprisingly, a good amount of pro-Donald Trump rhetoric — despite Mellencamp seemingly being averse to that topic.

While Maher and Mellencamp covered a wide range of topics, including the Democratic Party’s over-reliance on celebrity endorsements, it wasn’t until toward the end of the episode that Maher proffered some praise for Trump.

“You know, when we started Farm Aid, Willie [Nelson] and Neil [Young] and I, I think all of us were naive enough to think that if we do this show that the politicians will go, ‘These guys have a good point. We need to help the small family farmer.’

“No, it’s going to take more than a f***ing concert. It’s going to take more than a march to get rid of –”

At this point, Maher interjected: “– Trump’s wrote a lot of checks to farmers.”

“Huh?” Mellencamp responded.

At this point, Maher reiterated his point, while snidely adding that Trump had to cut checks because of the tariffs hamstringing farmers.

Mellencamp, perhaps not too knowledgeable on the topic, then switched topics back to how he had written a song to uplift young farmers.

To their credit, the two did eventually circle back to the topic of the president.

Mellencamp brought up how he had first met Trump at a Super Bowl event many years ago.

While the rock legend didn’t recognize the younger future president, the two struck up a conversation.

“But he bought me popcorn,” Mellencamp recalled. “He bought me Coke. He couldn’t have been nicer.”

Keep reading