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]]>July 11, 2025 Update 2: The United Farm Workers on Friday announced that one of the workers injured during Thursday’s ICE raid in Camarillo, Calif., died of his injuries.
July 11, 2025 Update 1: The Department of Homeland Security announced today that federal agents arrested 200 immigrants in the farm raids in Carpinteria and Camarillo and that during the operations they also “rescued” 10 migrant children “from potential exploitation, forced labor, and human trafficking.” Officials also said one protester in Camarillo fired a gun at officers; they are offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the individual’s arrest. An ABC video appears to show a protester firing a gun; the accompanying summary says no injuries were reported. Our reporter on the scene at the time did not witness gunfire.
July 10, 2025 – Large groups of immigration agents with military vehicles, helicopters, and weapons raided two farms in Southern California today, one in Carpinteria and another in Camarillo, where they rounded up workers and threw tear gas at protestors.
Both were locations of Glasshouse Farms, a cannabis operation that grows marijuana in large greenhouses.
In Carpinteria, farm staff told a local news station that 10 workers had been detained. There, federal agents threw flash-bang grenades and smoke bombs at a group of protestors, including U.S. Representative Salud Carbajal (D-California) and a local councilwoman.
In Camarillo, Ventura officials estimated 12 to 15 workers were detained. There, live helicopter footage from ABC News showed about a dozen military vehicles, fire trucks, and ambulances near the farms. At the site, individuals could be seen lined up against two walls outside. Federal agents blocked a road, where protesters gathered with signs and bullhorns and filmed with their cellphone cameras. At around both 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., agents fired non-lethal rounds and tear gas at the crowd before advancing forward, pointing weapons at the protestors. At one point, some protestors tried to block military vehicles from advancing; several protestors threw water bottles at the phalanx of federal agents.
(Photo credit: Brian Calvert)
Civil Eats was on the ground in Camarillo, where protestors said they had been assembled since around 10 a.m. They said the agents had advanced at least four times and also shot rubber bullets at them. The protestors said they could see agents lining people up outside the farm facility and loading them into vans. One woman said her cousin, who was in the process of applying for legal status, was hiding inside.
“We feed the country, we feed the people. Out here, this is all farmland. This a farm community,” said Javier Martinez, a Ventura County employee who took part in the protests. “There are a lot of farmworkers, field workers; they’re here to work.”
Although the administration has wavered several times as to whether farmworkers would be included in mass deportation plans, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said this week that there would be “no amnesty.” Civil Eats has been tracking raids on farms and other food establishments and has recorded at least 23 to date. (Link to this post.)
This story has been updated so that all times mentioned reflect Pacific Time.
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]]>The post How Big Ag Lobbyists Perpetuate Climate Inequity appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>In May 2024, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) issued a report analyzing the lobbying efforts of agribusiness ahead of anticipated debate over a farm bill. That farm bill remains in limbo, but lobbyists have been active on Capitol Hill in recent weeks, as members of Congress debate the food and agriculture policy shifts contained in Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation bill.
Money and lobbyists—a term coined for people who once waited in lobbies to speak to members of Congress—are intertwined in U.S. politics. Lobbyists act as influencers on behalf of special-interest groups. They help finance political campaigns and attend fundraisers for a chance to have their positions heard by legislators over breakfast, lunch, or drinks. The more money a lobbyist spends, the more face time he or she tends to get with a lawmaker (so long as the Supreme Court continues to protect money as free speech).
That leaves many Americans with little say in political decision-making and, according to Pew Research, “widespread dissatisfaction with the role of money in American politics.”
“This system also creates challenges for underserved producers, beginning farmers, and farmers of color in particular to enter the profession and start small farms, which are some of the most diversified operations.”
None of this is news to people who follow policy. However, what surprised UCS Food and Environment Program Scientist Omanjana Goswami, who co-authored the 2024 study with Karen Perry Stillerman, deputy director of the program, was the rise in these lobbying efforts by agribusiness.
Though Big Ag’s activities are often overshadowed by the massive influence of the oil and gas industry, the UCS analysis showed that these two entities are interconnected. The hundreds of millions of dollars they collectively spend on lobbying efforts create a democratic inequality wherein most people living in the United States have little say over the laws that dictate how we grow our food and what impact that has on the climate.
Industrial agriculture creates water scarcity, chemical pollution, soil degradation, and biodiversity loss, and it is a major driver of climate change through greenhouse gas emissions. The UCS report found that the “pay-to-play” lobbying system minimizes, in particular, the voices and the needs of small and midsize farms, diverse farmers, food workers, and farmworkers and prioritizes corporations, all while adding to the climate crisis.
Goswami recently spoke to Civil Eats to help explain the connection of agribusiness with oil and gas and what needs to be done to change a system that perpetuates climate inequality.
What is the relationship between agribusiness and the fossil fuel industry, and how does it impact climate change?
If you look at who the major lobbyists are, they represent big [agricultural] manufacturers that make fertilizers, chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, and insecticides, which need inputs of energy, in particular nitrogen fertilizer. There is this circularity and kind of quid pro quo between agribusiness and the oil and gas industry.
Our highly energy-intensive, monocultural farming system has a very high negative impact when it comes to climate. You’re constantly adding chemical inputs to an already stressed system, which then makes your energy inputs go up—and your negative climate impacts go up at the same time.
If food policy prioritizes corporate needs, how does that impact the well-being of people, the environment, and the climate? What sorts of climate inequalities does this system create or contribute to?
This system—how it’s set up and how the current administration is also moving it—is unfortunately where profits take precedence over people and the environment. There is something called a tipping point in climate science, and we’re pushing closer and closer to that tipping point, when perhaps we will not be able to bounce back, as nature has the capacity to do right now.
This creates inequities in an already inequitable system, where the burden falls on certain disadvantaged communities, certain disadvantaged races, people who already have difficulty, either in the place where they live—in terms of quality of air and water and resources that they have access to—and then just overall, making it inequitable for them to be able to breathe and live free.
This system also creates challenges for underserved producers, beginning farmers, and farmers of color in particular to enter the profession and start small farms, which also are some of the most diversified operations. They are being squeezed out of the system, because farms are getting larger and larger. That is a trend that you can observe throughout the food and farming system: The first people to leave farming are farmers of color—disadvantaged, underserved producers.
“[Our food] system doesn’t give us a choice on what food we eat, how it’s grown, or what we buy at the grocery store. The system is set up for big agribusiness to keep profiteering.”
A significant section of the report explores the lobbying efforts of the Farm Bureau, which spent nearly $16 million on farm bill lobbying alone between 2019 and 2023. What did you conclude about how it operates?
Most people think of the Farm Bureau as a leading state-based and national organization made up of farmers and advocates for farmers. But if you dig deeper, the Farm Bureau is really one of the worst actors when it comes to agribusiness and lobbying. It is actually one of the biggest climate deniers when it comes to climate- and equity-based issues.
What needs to change for lawmakers to focus on improving climate and equity? And what motivates you to continue advocating for this cause?
People need to realize how little choice they have in the system. [Our food] system doesn’t give us a choice on what food we eat, how it’s grown, or what we buy at the grocery store. The system is set up for big agribusiness to keep profiteering.
The biggest movement we need right now is for people to rise up and respond to this moment and collectively call for change in the system, to go to their elected officials in Congress and call for more transparency. Calling for more transparency, calling for more data, helps groups like us, groups who keep an eye on things like this.
Secondly, there are several marker bills in Congress that ask for equitable measures within larger pieces of legislation [such as the farm bill]. So basically, call on members of Congress and demand that equity-focused, climate-focused measures [continue to] be included.
As saddening and as discouraging as the environment can be right now, I think what keeps me motivated is knowing that I am definitely not in this fight alone.
This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.
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]]>The post USDA Canceling Grants that Feed Children Around the World appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>“This decision isn’t just a policy shift—it’s a life-altering blow to hundreds of thousands of children who rely on these meals to stay healthy, stay in school and stay hopeful about their future,” CRS CEO Sean Callahan said in a statement. “It is un-American to stand by and not provide assistance while hunger robs children of their chance to learn and thrive.”
The program provides U.S. agricultural commodities and technical expertise to help education, childhood development, and food security in lesser developed countries. Along with Catholic Relief Services, McGovern-Dole projects are undertaken by nonprofit organizations, cooperatives, the United Nations World Food Programme, and others, according to the USDA.
“By providing school meals, teacher training and related support, McGovern-Dole projects help boost school enrollment and academic performance,” the agency says. “At the same time, the program also focuses on improving children’s health and learning capacity before they enter school by offering nutrition programs for pregnant and nursing women, infants and preschoolers.”
The canceled grants will mean less demand for U.S. farmer commodities, even as other trade policies are pinching growers. And it will contribute to shrinking the United States’ soft-power influence around the world. The Trump administration dismantled USAID, a key agency in this endeavor, in March.
The White House Budget for 2026 proposes ending the McGovern-Dole program, not just canceling its contracts, though in the past Congress has supported the program.
At a Senate Appropriations hearing in May, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was questioned about the proposed elimination of the program—which purchased about $37 million of U.S-grown commodities including rice, beans, and corn to feed children overseas in 2023.
“Can you talk about what you’re saying to farmers to address this and how we’re replacing that food that is so desperately needed by people around the world?” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) asked.
Rollins said that the $37 million paid to farmers is too small of a portion of the total $240 million in funding and that while the government works to “reorganize” around efficiency, programs like McGovern-Dole may be cut. “At the end of the day,” she said, “are they serving the American taxpayer, who is funding them?” (Link to this story.)
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]]>The post EPA Rolls Back Limits on ‘Forever Chemicals’ appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>The decision could have health implications in many farming and rural communities, where the hazardous chemicals have contaminated farm soils and water systems due to the use of sewage-sludge fertilizers. Chemicals in the same family are also increasingly used in pesticides.
In an announcement Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says it is stepping away from protections announced in April 2024 that established hazard limits on the amount of these chemicals, known collectively as PFAS, which accumulate in the human body.
PFAS, officially called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have wide-ranging health impacts on humans, according to the Centers For Disease Control. Exposure at certain levels can increase cholesterol, reduce birth weights, and cause preeclampsia and kidney and testicular cancer, among many other risks.
Drinking water contamination from these “forever chemicals,” so called because they do not break down easily, is widespread across the United States, according to research from the Environmental Working Group. EWG President Ken Cook called Wednesday’s announcement “a betrayal of public health at the highest level.”
The EPA says it will keep just two limits in place, on perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), though it is extending a deadline for compliance. That means that water utilities now have until 2031 to reduce these chemicals in drinking water.
The EPA says it will not keep limits in place for four other chemicals: PFNA, PFHxS, GenX, and PFBS.
The dangers of PFAS have received increasing public attention in recent years, and Biden’s EPA took several steps to begin to address them, including setting the first-ever limits in drinking water. During recent hearings, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has talked about how her mother, a Texas state legislator, is focused on the issue. “She was so stunned by what had happened to these farmers, specifically through PFAS contamination. It destroyed their lives,” Rollins told Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) last week. The USDA, she said, is committed to supporting research on addressing PFAS contamination. (Link to this post.)
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]]>The post Amid Immigration Crackdowns, Lawmakers Reintroduce Farm Workforce Reforms appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>In a bipartisan effort, Representatives Dan Newhouse (R-Washington) and Zoe Lofgren (D-California) last week reintroduced the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, a bill that would provide pathways for non-citizens to legally work on farms while reforming the H-2A visa program.
“Due to the diminishing supply of U.S. workers willing to perform migrant farm labor, our nation’s farmers are increasingly dependent on foreign workers to meet labor demands,” Lofgren’s office stated in a summary of the bill. “Without foreign workers, many U.S. farms will go out of business, causing a ripple effect in our economy and increasing our reliance on imported food.”
Among other initiatives, the bill provides a pathway for agriculture workers to attain legal status through continued agricultural work for four to eight years. It also mandates the use of E-verify on farms and seeks to streamline the H-2A temporary visa program for agricultural workers, providing three-year visas. And the law would temporarily freeze and then cap wage increases. H-2A wages are contentious: They are too high for some farms to afford, and at the same time, the program is rife with abuse because employees are tied to their employers for legal status and basic needs.
Due mostly to Republican opposition, previous attempts at similar legislation—which represents compromises between farmworker advocates and industry—came incredibly close to passing but ultimately failed. Farmworker groups are also split on the legislation, with some supporting and others opposing. Now, though, farms are facing the prospect of fewer workers amid an immigration crackdown that has snared farmworkers and decreased border crossings, giving them more impetus to strengthen legal pathways and other reforms.
President Donald Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins have both signaled they are in favor of finding ways to keep immigrant labor in farms, despite broader attempts to expel undocumented workers. (Link to this post.)
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]]>The post Protests Mount Against ICE Detentions of Immigrant Farmworkers appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>In response to federal immigration enforcement targeting farmworkers and their communities around the country, the United Farm Workers union (UFW) organized a demonstration in New York today, challenging Trump administration immigration policies and calling for the release and a halt to the deportation of farmworkers already detained.
The union has been organizing demonstrations all week, following the arrests of 14 farmworkers in western New York last Friday. They are organizing at an ICE detention center in Batavia, New York, today to “demand the release of detained farmworker leaders,” according to calls to action from the UFW.
The UFW demonstrations come on the heels of another protest, this one in Washington state yesterday morning, where civil rights groups are also demanding the release of detained farmworkers, including a union organizer.
“We in the labor movement know all too well: an attack on the rights of any worker is an attack on the rights of every worker.”
In both cases, unions say workers appear to have been targeted by agents for their organizing.
Across the country, federal agents for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have detained farmworkers and union organizers amid a wider immigration sweep, in line with President Donald Trump’s policy agenda. Nearly 50,000 were being held in CBP and ICE detention in April. It is unclear exactly how many are farmworkers or labor organizers, but such arrests have been confirmed in California, New York, Vermont, Washington.
In California, Border Patrol agents made 78 arrests in Kern County, targeting a Home Depot, a convenience store frequented by farmworkers on their way to work, and drivers on roads running between farms, CalMatters reported.
In Vermont, at least three dairy workers have already been deported to Mexico after nine arrests there in April. Migrant Justice, a Vermont-based human rights organization, says thousands of people marched against ICE detentions last week.
“ICE has deported three farmworkers without due process, in clear violation of their rights,” Brett Stokes, a professor at Vermont Law who leads the legal team representing eight of the farmworkers, said in a statement. “We will fight for justice for those unjustly deported and will continue to move for the release of those still in detention.”
Arbey Lopez-Lopez, who was detained separately from the other eight, has a hearing scheduled with an immigration judge May 15. “The remaining farmworkers in detention have yet to receive a hearing date,” Migrant Justice said.
In New York, on the morning of May 2, federal agents pulled over a bus full of farmworkers in Albion, west of Rochester, detaining 14 employees of Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms. The UFW says the agents had a list of names, including union leaders who had been organizing at the farm. Those were the workers detained, the union said.
“Our top priority right now is to get these workers out. We are doing everything we can think of to accomplish that,” UFW Secretary Treasurer Armando Elenes said. “In this case, some of the workers who were detained were actively involved in organizing their workplace. We still have more questions than answers on how they came to be targeted . . . but if any workers at any company are ever targeted for immigration enforcement because of their involvement in union organizing, that would be a violation of our Constitution’s first amendment: the right to freedom of association, including with your union.”
In Washington state this week, organizers are calling for the release of Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez, a farmworker and organizer for Familias Unidas Por La Justicia (FUJ), who is being held at a detention center in Tacoma. Family members say Juarez was violently detained by ICE agents, who smashed his car window prior to arresting him.
Edgar Franks, an organizer at FUJ, told Truthout that the union believes Juarez’s detention was “politically motivated.”
“We believe he was targeted,” Franks said. “The way that ICE detained him was meant to intimidate. They hardly gave him any chance to defend himself or explain. He wasn’t resisting, and he just asked to see the warrant. They asked to see his ID, and right when he was reaching for it, they broke his car window. The ICE agents escalated really fast.”
The manner of the arrest was not unique, Franks said. “In past years, we’ve seen people getting pulled over and asked for their documents, but now it’s becoming more aggressive. ICE is harassing and intimidating people and not even showing warrants. It’s free rein for ICE to do whatever they want.”
An ICE spokesperson told Civil Eats Juarez had been ordered removed to his home country by an immigration judge in 2018. “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a joint federal law enforcement arrest of Juarez in Sedro Woolley, Washington, March 25, where he refused to comply with lawful commands to exit the vehicle he was occupying at the time of the arrest.” Juarez will remain in ICE custody “pending removal proceedings,” the spokesperson said.
All of these arrests and protests come amid ongoing scrutiny of Trump’s immigration policies and widespread concern for farmworkers in agriculture.
Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins faced questions from the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, including questions about farmworkers and immigration crackdowns. Rollins told lawmakers she had had lengthy conversations with President Donald Trump about the issue and that the president understands the importance of immigrant farmworkers. “The larger effort to reform our immigration system to better serve our farmers and our ranchers is a priority,” Rollins said.
Labor organizers say the immigration crackdown is making their work harder—and more necessary. The New York arrests, for example, show “why workers who may be facing this more hostile anti-immigrant climate nationally can really benefit from having a union that’s able and willing to go to bat for them,” Elenes at UFW said. “We in the labor movement know all too well: an attack on the rights of any worker is an attack on the rights of every worker.”
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]]>The post Proposal Could Threaten Endangered Species’ Survival in Farm Country appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>The Trump administration is proposing a significant change to one of the country’s most important—and contentious—environmental laws, which could give farmers more leeway to use pesticides without regard to their impact on critical habitats.
In a proposed rule change announced on March 17, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service want to change the way they interpret the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which they collectively administer, by rescinding the definition of “harm.”
“We are undertaking this change to adhere to the single, best meaning of the ESA,” the agencies say.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service want to change the way they interpret the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by rescinding the definition of “harm.”
Under the proposed rule change, habitat would not be protected, which could have huge consequences. It would open more of the United States to drilling, logging, and other industries. And it would represent a significant development for farmers, ranchers, and other food producers, affecting the ways they use land, make decisions about conservation, and treat crops. That’s especially true of pesticide use.
“Redefining ‘harm’ to not include habitat would really have a lot of impact,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Pesticides are habitat-destroying chemicals. They kill plants. They destroy water quality and soil health. If you’ve ever driven through the rural Midwest, it quickly becomes apparent that that the only living things allowed to thrive there are corn and soy and wheat, and that’s brought to you by pesticides. So habitat and pesticides really go hand in hand.”
The move comes just a few years after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally began regulating pesticides’ impacts on endangered species and the habitats that support them—and after 50 years of the agency’s failure to address that responsibility under the ESA.
Narrowing the Scope of Law
The Endangered Species Act prohibits the killing of protected species under the term “take.” Under the current law, that term means to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.”
The agencies say that there is a “well-established, centuries-old understanding” of the word “take”: to kill or capture a wild animal. But the agencies argue that federal regulations have since expanded the reach of the law, and the meaning of “harm,” to include habitat modification. The best reading of the statute would mean adhering to a stricter definition of “take” and “harm,” to exclude what they call “habitat modification.”
Conservation groups say that such an interpretation would impair a key feature of the law, habitat protection, because it is an essential part of the preservation of endangered or threatened species.
Wild salmon migrating upstream in the Columbia River, Oregon. (Photo credit: DaveAlan, Getty Images)
“I think it changes the equation, because it removes concerns about one of the biggest impacts to listed species, which is loss of habitat,” said Mike Leahy, senior director of wildlife, hunting, and fishing policy at the National Wildlife Federation. “So, in the grazing or ranching context, a rancher could allow cattle or sheep to destroy spawning grounds for salmon, to graze all over it and trample through it, and they wouldn’t have to worry about ‘take.’ They’re saying, ‘Well, my cattle are not actually stepping on the head of the fish, so they’re not actually killing any fish.’ And if harm to habitat doesn’t count as take, then they don’t have to worry about that.”
In their proposal, the agencies cite a 2024 decision by the Supreme Court that put less emphasis on agencies’ expertise—a legal doctrine called Chevron deference—and more emphasis on the reading of a statute. The agencies are arguing that the best reading of the Endangered Species Act should not include interpretations of harm to a species through habitat loss.
Impact on Farmers and Ranchers
The Fish and Wildlife Service, which is under the Interior Department, and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is under the Commerce Department, are the agencies in charge of implementing the Endangered Species Act. And while some of their decisions directly impact farmers and ranchers, often through the use of public land, they also influence the way the Environmental Protection Agency manages chemicals.
Like all federal agencies, the EPA has a legal obligation to adhere to the Endangered Species Act. That includes approving or reviewing the use of pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, rodenticides, and fungicides. Under a traditional reading of the Endangered Species Act, the EPA should protect against the loss of habitat, cover, or food sources for protected species, in consultation with Fish and Wildlife or National Marine Fisheries.
Essentially, the EPA ends up doing “homework” for those agencies during chemical registrations and reviews, said Hardy Kern, director of government relations at the American Bird Conservancy.
But the new rule raises questions about this process, Kern said. “If ‘harm’ no longer encompasses habitat, is EPA to consider pesticide impacts on habitat anymore? Do they only consider direct impacts to species (ingestion, direct exposure, etc.)?”
Kern also questioned whether, under the new interpretation, EPA would consider matters related to drift and runoff, or attempt to identify habitat impacts from chemicals, and if it does, whether the two agencies would also consider those impacts.
Conservation groups have long claimed that the EPA fails in its ESA obligations, leading to a raft of lawsuits. In 2002, for example, the Center for Biological Diversity sued the EPA, alleging it had not considered impacts to the California red-legged frog, a threatened species, during the registration review of 66 active pesticide ingredients. The EPA has faced similar lawsuits for protected species of salmon and trout, and many others.
Under the Biden administration, the EPA overhauled how it regulated thousands of chemicals, to streamline the process and to come into closer compliance with the ESA. The agency signed a legal agreement in 2023 and has been working with industries, conservation groups, and others to develop a process of “strategies” aimed at aligning its chemical reviews with the ESA and clearly communicating with people who use chemicals.
Conservationists and industrial groups alike are watching the proposed rule change, to understand whether a new reading of the Endangered Species Act would disrupt this process—across the federal government. If the rule goes through, said Donley at the Center for Biological Diversity, “quite a bit more agency actions are just not going to be analyzed at all under the Endangered Species Act.”
If habitat destruction is not an issue under the law, farmers may be less inclined to join conservation programs.
As of now, the EPA is still relying on a traditional interpretation of the law. On April 29, the EPA issued a major update intended to streamline the regulation of insecticides and curb their impacts on endangered species. The agency said it has a responsibility to ensure that pesticide registration doesn’t jeopardize protected species, “or result in the destruction or adverse modification of their designated critical habitats.”
EPA released a similar strategy for herbicides last August. In that strategy, habitat protection is even more central, since weedkillers tend to also kill plants that various species depend on.
Under the interpretation proposed by Fish and Wildlife, critical habitat would not be considered. Farm groups are watching to see whether that new interpretation will impact the EPA’s strategies and process going forward.
“It’s something we’re keeping close tabs on,” said Kyle Kunkler, senior director of government affairs for the American Soybean Association. “We don’t feel that these ESA strategies are where we want them to be yet. But the other thing is, we want to make sure that there isn’t going to be anything that overturns the apple cart as well, that would completely disrupt those processes. If there is some major, disruptive factor, some sort of rule-making, or something that comes along that could jeopardize that path that we’re on, that’s something that we’re going to have to really think long and hard about.”
EPA officials were not available for direct comment by press time.
Beyond the EPA, taking habitat loss out of the Endangered Species Act could have other implications. It could change the way species are protected on private land. An agricultural producer may be less inclined to enroll in government land conservation programs, which sometimes provide legal protections against accidentally killing endangered species.
The monarch butterfly, for example, is currently proposed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, and agencies and others are looking for ways to incentivize farmers to protect milkweed on their properties, since it’s the only food source for monarchs. If habitat destruction is not an issue under the law, farmers may be less inclined to join conservation programs.
“For a pollinator like the monarch, that habitat is just really widespread, that’s part of the problem,” said Lekha Knuffman, a senior agriculture program specialist at the National Wildlife Federation. “So how does this play out in that scenario?”
Broadly speaking, she said, the proposed rule change “weakens or significantly narrows the ability of Fish and Wildlife Service to make ‘take’ determinations or require consultations of EPA, since habitat modification is a pretty significant portion of those determinations.”
Threats Beyond Habitat
The proposed rule change could have broad implications beyond habitat. Currently, both Fish and Wildlife and the National Marine Fisheries Service seek to prevent incidental acts of harm under the law—the striking of endangered birds by wind turbines, for example. But under the proposed change, the agencies say they want to interpret harm to require an “affirmative act” that is “directed immediately and intentionally against a particular animal.”
“Ninety-six percent of birds that live in North America eat bugs at some point in their life.”
That could mean the loss of legal protections for many species interwoven in ecological systems that often include farms, fields, and pastures—birds, especially.
“Ninety-six percent of birds that live in North America eat bugs at some point in their life,” Kern, at the American Bird Conservancy, said. “Most birds rear their chicks on bugs. They need them to fuel up during migration. Even birds like hummingbirds, which we think of as nectar eaters, feed their babies primarily spiders and small flies.”
A rule that changes the definition of harm might change the way federal agencies think about habitat, he said, but it also could change the way they think about the protection of other crucial elements of a species’ survival.
“That can include feeding, sheltering, and breeding,” he said. “So, we’re talking about more than just the places that birds and other species live, we’re talking about the actions that contribute to their survival. And if you talk to anybody, of course that should constitute harm.”
The public comment period for the rule change ends on May 19. Kern believes this is the moment for the public to speak up: “This is a fabulous opportunity for people to weigh in and say, ‘I stand up for the Endangered Species Act; I think that it is an important law, and I understand that habitat is just as important as direct attacks on individuals of a species.’”
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]]>The post EPA Releases Its Final ‘Insecticide Strategy’ to Align with Endangered Species Act appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>The EPA has already completed a strategy on herbicides. These strategies, with others to follow, are intended to protect listed species under the law, while communicating clearly with farmers and other users of these chemicals on how and where they can be applied.
The EPA said it received more than 26,000 public comments and more than 230 unique comments to address, following the release of a draft in July 2024. It adjusted the draft “to provide greater flexibility and options for the agricultural community, while ensuring that endangered species are protected.”
The strategy includes guidance on buffer distances for insecticide applications, a process for crediting growers who use conservation programs, and an interactive map that allows people to look up specific chemicals and their restrictions in specific areas. It also includes a three-step framework for reviewing insecticides and developing prohibitions for their use to protect endangered and threatened species.
“Today’s action is another example of how protecting our environment and safeguarding our economy can go hand in hand,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement about the release. “We have found common-sense ways to keep endangered species safe that won’t place unneeded burden on the growers who rely on these tools for their livelihood, and which are necessary to ensure a safe and plentiful food supply. We are committed to ensuring the agriculture community has the tools they need to protect our country, especially our food supply, from pests and diseases.”
The EPA’s strategies are provided to help steer the agency toward more compliance with the Endangered Species Act. They take into account comments from conservation groups, agricultural industry, and others. But they are not set in stone.
“These strategies are guidance,” Kyle Kunkler, senior director of government affairs for the American Soybean Association, said. “There’s nothing that prohibits them from going back and making changes to strategies, to make continued improvement. It’s going to mean that we still got our work cut out for us, for sure. We’ve got a laundry list of a dozen different things that we think are going to be necessary to make sure that we get these to a good spot for agriculture.”
They also are not the end of the issue, but rather an attempt by the EPA to address a wide majority of species and potential threats.
“They’re putting in place some of these cookie-cutter ESA protections, and the idea is that they’re protecting probably 90 percent of the species that are getting hit by this pesticide,” Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “And then, you know the deal with the other 10 percent, as time allows.” (Link to this post.)
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]]>The post Ahead of International Workers’ Day, USDA Touts Anti-Immigration Efforts on Farms appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>Immigration crackdowns were central to Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, and the first 100 days of his administration farmworkers and labor organizers have been detained or arrested alongside student activists and alleged members of Central American gangs. Farmers and farmworkers continue to worry that broader crackdowns will hurt an already tight labor market.
As with other departments, the USDA has worked to implement Trump’s policies. Rollins has stated she wants “to ensure that illegal immigrants do not receive federal benefits,” the agency said, by implementing stricter eligibility screening for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), among other initiatives.
Rollins says tighter restrictions will prevent “illegal aliens” from getting benefits. “We are stewards of taxpayer dollars, and it is our duty to ensure states confirm the identity and verify the immigration status of SNAP applicants,” she said in a statement. “USDA’s nutrition programs are intended to support the most vulnerable Americans. To allow those who broke our laws by entering the United States illegally to receive these benefits is outrageous.”
Rollins did not cite evidence to support that undocumented people in the U.S. are receiving federal benefits, which are denied to non-citizens in most cases. But she said she has issued guidance to state agencies “directing them to enhance identity and immigration verification practices when determining eligibility” for SNAP.
That could add steps to the process and make it harder in general for people to apply for benefits, which in turn could end up hurting farm laborers, foresters, and fishers, many of whom rely on such benefits. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that nearly 20 percent of farming, fishing, and forestry workers received SNAP benefits between 2015 and 2017. “Food workers are roughly twice as likely to need SNAP as the average U.S. worker,” the group said.
Immigrant labor remains a key pillar of U.S. agriculture. This has included a major increase in farmworkers under the H2-A seasonal worker program over the past 20 years, but it also includes the widespread employment of undocumented workers on farms. The farm industry continues to worry about farm labor, despite some assurances from Trump that farms will be able to continue to hire non-U.S. workers. USDA data from the end of the Biden administration suggest that about half of hired crop workers in the U.S. lack legal immigration status.
Under President Trump, immigration enforcement has pushed into farm country. In Washington state in March, plainclothes ICE agents detained a farm labor organizer named Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino, and in January Border Patrol agents raided a farm in Kern County, California, arresting 78 people.
Civic organizers are holding a rally in Olympia, Washington today, calling for the release of Zeferino and others held in ICE detention. Meanwhile, a federal court in California has issued an injunction that prohibits Border Patrol agents across large swathes of the state from stopping people without reasonable suspicion they are breaking the law, or arresting people without a warrant and probable cause.
“This order rightfully upholds the law,” Teresa Romero, President of United Farm Workers, said on Tuesday, following the injunction. “Border Patrol can’t just wade into communities snatching up hardworking people without due process, just for being brown and working class.” (Link to this post.)
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]]>The post How One Milwaukee Food Bank Is Handling the Drop in USDA Funding appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>For months, Matt King kept an eye on federal food aid policies. He also stayed in constant contact with Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services, which, among other things, manages food disbursements from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). King is the chief executive officer of Hunger Task Force, which operates a food bank, a 280-acre farm, and other aid programs in Milwaukee, providing nutritious food to more than 50,000 people every month in Wisconsin’s most populous city.
In particular, he was tracking available food distributions from the Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP. TEFAP is a federal program that provides food assistance to people with low incomes, often by supplementing food banks. An affable, soft-spoken advocate for nutrition, King was planning on the TEFAP distributions to stockpile food supplies heading into summer.
“Over the past year, we have experienced a 35 percent increase in visits to local food pantries.”
Suddenly, in late March, those TEFAP distributions were canceled. There was no formal communication around the cancelled disbursements, amounting to $2.2 million in Wisconsin, he says. They were just no longer available. Hunger Task Force lost five full truckloads of food, including canned chicken, cheese, milk, and eggs, along with other deliveries of turkey breast, chicken legs, pulled pork, and pork chops. More than 300,000 pounds of food, worth $615,000, was gone. Nationwide, a total $500 million allocated for TEFAP had been cut, leaving many food banks scrambling.
It was the second blow in March to the nation’s food safety net, as the Trump administration continued sweeping cuts to federal programs and funding. Hunger Task Force and other food banks were already coping with the loss of $500 million from the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation. The CCC oversees the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA), which provided funds that allowed King to purchase fresh food, especially produce, from local farmers.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has said that the USDA is cutting funding allocated during the Biden administration that is excessive or unnecessary. In an April 3 letter to Senator Amy Klobucher (D-Minnesota), the ranking member of the Senate’s Committee on Agriculture, Rollins said the Biden administration had “inflated statutory programs with Commodity Credit Corporation dollars without any plans for long-term solutions, and even in 2024, used the pandemic as a reason to make funding announcements.”
Matt King, CEO of Hunger Task Force, on a 208-acre Hunger Task Force Farm in Franklin, Wisconsin, which offers a unique source of fresh produce for the community. (Photo courtesy of Hunger Task Force)
During trips to Pennsylvania and Arkansas last week, Rollins said that states currently have more than enough funding for programs like TEFAP and that the cancelled funds were extra distributions that should have ended with the pandemic. “The money is there,” she said, and going forward the programs will be “more effective, more intentional.”
In fact, food banks are facing major shortfalls from USDA cuts, with a combined loss of $1 billion from cuts to LFPA and TEFAP.
Far from Washington, D.C., King’s Hunger Task Force, along with food banks across the country, faces drastic cuts to programs and funding, even as the cost of living, including food, continues to climb.
Civil Eats recently spoke with King to learn the extent of the cuts—and how his organization plans to move forward.
How will you close the gap in food deliveries created by the cuts in federal funding?
It’s been a challenge, and especially given the short notice. One of the real problematic aspects of the cut to the LFPA program, specifically, was that there didn’t seem to be much of a consideration for the impact on the small businesses and the impact on the farmers who were operating under the pretense that the program was continuing for the upcoming growing season.
Hunger Task Force lost five full truckloads of food, including canned chicken, cheese, milk, and eggs.
Many of them had already gone out and purchased the supplies and essentially made financial commitments, only to have the rug kind of pulled out from underneath them. Many of them had already planted their seeds and had started their seedlings for the upcoming growing season. So, for us, it was talking to some of our trusted, long-time donors and explaining the situation.
Our community of donors is also very much committed to local agriculture and supporting growers and producers, so they were able to help us to fill that gap.
What will the TEFAP interruption mean for the people of Milwaukee who have been counting on food banks?
Well, over the past year, we have experienced a 35 percent increase in visits to local food pantries. Right now, across all of our programs, we’re serving over 50,000 people every month, and over the last five years, just here in Milwaukee, the effects of housing and rent increases have been really acute.
We’ve experienced an over 30 percent increase over five years in average rent. When you add all these things together—a dramatic increase in average rent, the increase costs of living, particularly around groceries, as well as then the end of many of the pandemic-era benefits—all these things have contributed to a pretty stark increase in need. So, these cuts come at a really challenging time.
We currently have strong community support and enough inventory to make sure that our network of food pantries stays stocked.
But if the need continues to increase at the rate that it has been, there does become a tipping point. We’re about a year out from a point at which a continued increase in need would need to be accompanied with an increased level of food inventories to be able to keep up.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has said these cuts were made because the additional funding to these programs was “unnecessary.” How do you respond to that?
These particular shipments that were canceled were authorized because of the dramatic increase in need that food banks around the country have experienced. A lot of that is due to the increased cost of living that people around the country are experiencing, in particular housing, but also groceries. These shipments were a necessary part of supporting the food banks’ capacity to meet that growing need.
During the first Trump administration, when similar tariffs were enacted, the USDA purchased a lot of food to stabilize commodities and to stabilize food markets and food pricing. Right now, we’re taking a measured approach and purchasing some items, but also monitoring, to see whether or not similar investment from the USDA will be made to support producers who might be affected by the current tariff situation.
Can you describe the relationships that you’ve built with local farmers due to some of the increases in this support and funding? How do you think that those relationships are going to be impacted by these cuts?
These programs have been vital for our ability to provide access to healthy food, but they’ve also been vital for the farmers that we partner with, and we’ve been able to forge some really meaningful connections and relationships with producers here in our state. And those relationships will continue, because those weren’t contingent on a funding source for many of the farmers. They not only have appreciated the market for their products, but also the ability to see their products going to help people in need. So they don’t want to see that go away.
Fresh produce at emergency food network partner South Milwaukee Human Concerns. (Photo courtesy of Hunger Task Force)
As we all know, there’s a lot of risk that exists within farming from one year to the next, and having the security of some of these contracts has really benefited American agriculture and a lot of American small businesses. So, from our perspective, these programs are not only vital for the access to healthy food for people in need, but also really vital to our economy.
Because our commitment and partnership and friendship with our local producers here in Wisconsin runs so deep, it was no question about whether we were going to continue that programming, so we have honored those commitments, essentially with our own version of the LFPA program.
What are the ways that farmers or members of the public can help their local food banks?
Well, food banks around the country are reliant upon the generosity and compassion of their community, and that includes people giving of their time to volunteer, people giving of their funds to help the organization run and to make food purchases where needed, but then also donations of food. So we would encourage people to find a way that makes sense for them to get involved with their local food bank.
For farmers, whether it’s the possible upcoming farm bill process or whether it’s the current federal budget negotiation and reconciliation that’s happening at the Ag Committee level right now, farmers have an opportunity to reach out to their federal legislators to let them know that as constituents, they support these [LPFA and TEFAP] programs being prioritized and invested into.
I think that that’s the most impactful way they can get involved. We’ve done visits with our legislators, and it’s been our food bank and the farmers together really demonstrating our mutual support for programs like this.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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]]>The post Trump Orders Deregulation of the US Fishing Industry appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>“The United States should be the world’s dominant seafood leader,” Trump wrote in the order, Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness. “But in addition to overregulation, unfair trade practices have put our seafood markets at a competitive disadvantage.”
The order tasks Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to work with the Department of Health and Human Services and the fishing industry to “immediately consider suspending, revising, or rescinding regulations that overly burden America’s commercial fishing, aquaculture, and fish processing industries at the fishery-specific level.” It also orders an examination of trade policies to benefit U.S. fishing.
U.S. fisheries experienced severe overfishing in the 1980s and 1990s, with essential fish stocks either depleting or collapsing. In the decades since, the stocks have recovered, in large part due to stricter fishing regulations and close monitoring. The government agency tasked with monitoring fish stocks, through scientific survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, underwent major personnel cuts after Trump’s inauguration.
The Department of Commerce fired more than 600 probationary employees in February. And while lower court judges ordered many of them reinstated in March, the Supreme Court has since paused some of the reinstatements. Workers told NBC News this week the agency is suffering under “intentional chaos,” due to the cuts. Firings have since resumed, Reuters reported on April 10.
Advocacy groups say Trump’s newest order endangers U.S. fisheries anew, at a time when they are facing increasing pressure from climate change.
“Between firing experts at NOAA, delaying fishing seasons, and disrupting ocean science and data collection, the Trump administration is causing unprecedented chaos,” Meredith Moore, Ocean Conservancy’s senior director for fish conservation, said in a statement. “Today’s executive order would weaken, not strengthen, our fishing industry by increasing the risk that overfishing drives our fish stocks into decline, effectively taking healthy U.S. seafood off the menu. The U.S. fishing management system already maximizes catch to the limit that science says is sustainable.”
It was not the only fisheries-related move from the administration. An official proclamation from the president also announced a plan for “unleashing American commercial fishing” into the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. “This action threatens to reverse decades of progress that have reduced overfishing and exploitation of one of the planet’s last wild, healthy ocean ecosystems and a place of cultural significance for Pacific Islanders,” the Pacific Islands Heritage Coalition said in a statement.
The national monument, which was established in 2009 at the end of the Bush administration and expanded under the Obama administration, “includes some of America’s most pristine coral reefs and ocean ecosystems,” Douglas McCauley, a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara and director of Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory, said in a statement. “It is a safe haven for endangered sea turtles, the feeding and breeding ground for millions of seabirds, and a place of refuge for endangered marine mammals. Only 3 percent of our worldwide ocean is strongly protected today and our monuments are a significant portion of this figure. In attempting to downgrade the protection of this unique monument, we are devaluing a critically important asset in America’s ocean wealth portfolio.” (Link to this post.)
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]]>The post At a Regional USDA Office, Californians Protest Agency Cuts appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>Throughout her career at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Diane Delaney had a good job that allowed her a comfortable place among the middle class in the San Francisco Bay Area. Perhaps more important, the role made her feel like she was contributing to a better future. As a lab technician, she carefully prepared tree core samples that helped scientists understand past and future climates as well as wildfires, cleaning and polishing samples while enjoying the aroma of fresh pine.
“We decided that we should be supporting government programs, government workers, things that we think are important to have for our society.”
Lately, though, this feeling of pride has been replaced with something else, as the administration of President Trump cuts federal funding, fires government workers, and, as of Wednesday, takes steps toward a global trade war.
“I’m pissed,” Delaney said. Pissed that science is taking a back seat, pissed that public servants are losing good, middle-class jobs, and pissed that the world will now have less information about a changing climate at a critical moment in history, she said.
So, on Wednesday afternoon, Delaney, 71, joined about 50 demonstrators outside the building where she once worked, the USDA’s Western Regional Research Center in Albany, California, to let her feelings be known. “Federal workforce,” her sign proclaimed, “I stand with you.”
She stood alongside other demonstrators, many of them retirees, whose placards similarly supported the agency: “USDA feeds hungry children,” “Protect our food; protect USDA,” and “Got milk? Thank the USDA.” Demonstrators waved placards and American flags at the rush-hour traffic as commuters honked their horns in support. One driver rang a cowbell as he passed. “Give ‘em hell,” a bicyclist growled as he pedaled by.
Carl Wilmsen (left) and Patty Fujiwara joined some 50 demonstrators to protest the Trump Administration’s cuts to federal agencies. “What is happening now is not normal, and it’s not OK,” Fujiwara says. (Photo credit: Brian Calvert)
The rally was organized by the Albany-Berkeley chapter of a political action organization, Together We Will (TWW), as part of a broader strategy to put “sand in the gears [and] slow down the hostile government takeover,” according to TWW’s newsletter.
It came amid a series of ongoing protests nationwide, including March’s protests of USDA cuts in Maine and last weekend’s mass demonstrations against Tesla and its owner, the billionaire Elon Musk, who provided more than $270 million to the Trump campaign and is now a key advisor to the president. Mass anti-Trump demonstrations are scheduled for Saturday as part of the “Hands Off” movement.
“We decided that we should be supporting government programs, government workers, things that we think are important to have for our society,” said Pam Tellew, an organizer for TWW. “My late father-in-law was actually a chemist for the USDA for many years, and so it was really near to my heart. The research and the work that’s done here helps farmers grow things more efficiently and better.”
Waves of Uncertainty
The Albany regional center is part of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, which, among other things, develops new methods to track the COVID-19 virus in domestic and wild animals, traces E. coli outbreaks in bagged romaine lettuce, and studies how black beans can help repair insulin and gut bacteria problems. These are the kinds of programs demonstrators say they want to prevent being cut, as the Trump administration continues its unprecedented revamping of the federal government.
Under Trump, workers at the USDA, and farmers who depend on them, have faced wave after wave of uncertainty.
Some 6,000 USDA workers have been laid off under Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to The New York Times. Typically, the USDA employs nearly 100,000 people across 29 agencies and offices. Some workers have returned to their jobs as a result of court orders but have told Civil Eats the process has been confusing and chaotic. Thousands more may be vulnerable to cuts, and morale within the department is low.
Farmers—especially those operating small farms that sell into local and regional markets—and the organizations that support them are also reeling. Staff cuts have hit local offices that provide loan, crop, and conservation assistance, and more than a dozen grant programs have been disrupted.
Funding freezes within some grant programs have been implemented and reversed, exacerbating uncertainty. Farmers worry contracts they signed under the Biden administration will not be honored, even when they’re waiting for reimbursements for money already spent. Some contracts have already been canceled.
More than $1 billion in funding has also already been cut, in work overseen by Trump’s Agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, from programs that pay farmers to produce healthy foods and send them directly to schools, food banks, and other communities in need.
Farmers working on “climate smart” initiatives created by President Biden have been waiting for contracted payments since January, with no news. (Some of these farmers have now joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration, seeking a reversal to the freezing of federal funding.)
The Albany regional center is part of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, which studies myriad health and safety issues related to food. (Photo credit: Civil Eats staff)
The federal freeze of USDA funding and its dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development have also impacted a program that helps farms bring in guestworkers. And the agency’s immigration crackdowns have sown confusion in the agricultural labor market.
On Wednesday, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, with major implications for food, farms, and other agricultural businesses. Experts say this will raise food prices at home, while hurting export markets for U.S. farmers. (Rollins has indicated she’s looking to provide relief to farmers in the short term.)
During his record-breaking, 25-hour speech on the Senate floor this week, Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, railed against the administration’s impact on food and agriculture. “Trump is causing an unprecedented amount of chaos, instability and harm for farmers,” Booker said. “I’ve had farmers from New Jersey to Texas coming to my office about this president freezing contracts that we [in Congress] approved in a bipartisan manner, putting them in financial crisis.”
‘Not Normal and Not OK’
These policies and ensuing chaos were too much for Carl Wilmsen, who joined Wednesday’s demonstration.
“The myth of the Deep State is exactly that,” he said. “It’s a myth. The people in the government agencies are here to provide essential services to all Americans, and it’s important that they continue providing those services there.”
Trump’s policies are unlikely to save money in the long run, he said. “When they start firing people in the USDA, or the Social Security Administration, or Health and Human Services, it’s going to end up costing us more money because there are going to be a lot of mistakes made, because the people who are remaining in those agencies will be overworked. The agencies will be understaffed. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we find that at the end of the day, the government actually ends up spending more money than they’re trying to save.”
Next to him stood Patty Fujiwara, who said she joined the demonstration “to get the word out that what is happening now is not normal and it’s not OK.”
The USDA building, she said, was an appropriate venue to help people understand how many government services are out there that impact people’s lives. She added, “I think it’s really important for people to come out and just show that there are a lot of us—many, many, many people—who are really unhappy and frightened and afraid of what is going on right now in our country.”
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]]>The post The ‘Soft Path’ of Water for Farmers in the Western US appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>When Peter Gleick moved to California in the 1970s, the state had more than a million acres of cotton in production and little control over the use of its rapidly depleting groundwater. Today, California grows a tenth the amount of cotton and groundwater use has been brought under control. For Gleick, an author and cofounder of the water-focused Pacific Institute, these are signs that change can happen. But there’s much more to be done, and quickly, especially in the arid western United States, where water use is extremely high—and climate change and drought are increasing pressure on a region that already uses a tremendous amount of water.
“We have to fundamentally rethink agriculture. How much agriculture do we want? What kind of crops are we going to grow?”
In his latest book, The Three Ages of Water, Gleick describes what he calls a “soft path” for water conservation, moving beyond the hard infrastructure and rigid policies we’ve relied on in the past. This means rethinking attitudes toward growth, while recognizing water as a fundamental human right and a source of broader ecological health. In the West, that also means reconsidering our approach to agriculture. Civil Eats caught up with Gleick to understand what that means and how we should think about water in the near future.
When it comes to water, agriculture, and the arid West, how should we be framing the challenges ahead?
Illustration by Nhatt Nichols. Source: “Review and Synopsis of Natural and Human Controls on Fluvial Channel Processes in the Arid West,” by John J. Field and Robert W. Lichvar.
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There’s a mismatch between how much water there is and what humans want to do with it. It used to be mining. Mining was the dominant user of water. But really, for our lifetime and certainly our immediate predecessors, agriculture has been the dominant user of water. So, how can we continue in the West to do the things that we want to do within the constraints of nature, the constraints of how much water is available, and the growing constraint of the realization that even the limited amount of water that’s available has to serve multiple purposes?
We built a whole series of systems, both physical and institutional, that brought enormous benefits to us—hydropower, irrigated agriculture, water for cities. It was at a cost we didn’t fully understand at the time—in particular, the devastation of natural ecosystems that were also very dependent on limited water.
How do we need to think about agriculture differently in the West if we’re going to have enough water in the future?
We have to fundamentally rethink agriculture, very broadly. How much agriculture do we want? What kind of crops are we going to grow? How are we going to water those crops, and how are we going to manage the institutions that give the signals to farmers about what to grow, that determine how markets develop, that subsidize good or bad things, that allocate water from one user to another? Those are all things we designed 100 years ago or more, and they no longer serve their purpose.
“Everywhere I look there are smart farmers and smart cities doing innovative things. There are people nibbling around the edges of the water rights discussion.”
The arid West is a great place to grow alfalfa. Some farmers can get three or four or five crops a year of alfalfa. It’s easy to grow. The problem is it takes a lot of water, and farmers grow it because they have available water, because of the institutions or the laws or the economics that give that water to them. And subsidies for certain kinds of things, like transportation, make it economical to grow. We’re now in a world, I believe, where the water laws and the markets that encourage farmers to do certain kinds of things are no longer appropriate.
The challenge is, how do we redesign those things? How do we change those things? You can change it by limiting water availability to certain farmers. You can change it by changing the price of water or subsidies for alfalfa. You can change it by regulatory changes. You can change it by economic changes. But we haven’t figured that out yet.
What are the strongest levers we have right now to move things quickly?
Changing water rights, which is a legal issue, and policy, in the broad sense: subsidies, economic strategies, assistance to farmers, information about extreme events from the climatic point of view. We can make improvements in technology to some degree, and I think that’s really important, but the really big changes will come about on the legal and institutional side.
Prior appropriation, where water rights were given out 100 years ago or more based on first come, first served, those water rights are badly monitored and enforced. They also don’t lead to efficient use of water. If you have a senior water right and there’s water scarcity, you get your water first—it doesn’t matter how efficient you are, and you have to use it or you lose it.
The prior appropriations doctrine made sense 100 years ago, but it no longer makes sense. But it’s so heavily ensconced in law and culture that changing that is probably the biggest barrier to moving agriculture in the West into the 21st century.
Where can we look to find solutions to these challenges?
I think there are solutions to every one of these problems. We’re already seeing the elements of it in what I call the “soft path” for water. The hard path is what we did in the 20th century, the hard institutions, infrastructure, and economics that brought us the benefits of the 20th century, but also the problems we see. The soft path says we have to rethink the supply of water.
We have to stop thinking that finding a new source of supply is always the solution. There are no new sources of water, in the traditional sense, but there are non-traditional new sources of water: recycled water, reclaimed water, desalinated water. Most of those are expensive, and urban. But they are new sources in the sense that they don’t require tapping another river over, tapping groundwater, or building a pipeline from the Great Lakes or from Canada. Those days are over, although some people haven’t realized that yet.
The soft path also says rethink demand, and that’s this question of efficiency and conservation. Do what we want with less water, and rethink what we really want to use our water for. What’s our demand really about? Do we really want to grow as much alfalfa in the West as we’re growing today? I think that’s a question we’re starting to ask, and we need to ask more questions like that.
And the soft path says we have to rethink our institutions, economics, management, politics, and laws. Everywhere I look there are smart farmers and smart cities doing innovative things. There are people nibbling around the edges of the water rights discussion. So, the challenge is to find the success stories. Figure out why they’re successes and implement them to scale.
This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.
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