Will the Defeat of Democrat Collin Peterson Be Good for the Climate?
Collin Peterson holds forth at a farm bill rally in 2013. Karin Elton/AP Photo/The Independent For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.Even before the apparent defeat of President Donald Trump, the 2020 election has already shaken up US farm policy. Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), the…
Trump Rescued a Nasty Pesticide from an EPA Ban. Now Corteva Will Stop Making It.
Pgiam/Getty Images Back in 2017, in the early days of the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency rejected a proposal by its own scientists to ban chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxic pesticide suspected of causing to lower birth weights, lower IQs, attention deficit disorder and other developmental issues in children. The decision generated outrage and inspired several…
Clinton Gave Up On Rural America. Are the Democrats About To Do It Again?
Donald Trump on the campaign trail, 2016.Andrew Harnik/AP Photo President Donald Trump, speaking in Iowa last week, made a bold prediction about his prospects in the Hawkeye State this coming November: “We’re going to win the great state of Iowa, and it’s going to be a historic landslide,” he thundered. Trump may actually turn out…
Climate Change Is Making It Much Harder to Be a Young Farmer
A young woman picks fruit.Dmitry Feoktistov/Zuma This story was originally published by the Food and Environment Reporting Network. With this season’s severe flooding, raging wildfires, and delayed planting, many of the country’s farmers are struggling to adjust as climate change sets in. Yet young and beginning farmers face unique challenges, farmers and advocates say, with…
Will Small Farmers’ Beef With Trump Sway the 2020 Election?
Marco Cibola On an October morning, two men and a woman wearing cowboy hats, bearing American flags, and sitting atop horses rode into a windowless conference room in the depths of a Ramada Inn on the edge of Omaha. When they reached the front of the room and faced the crowd of about 500 ranchers,…