After 20 years of focused work with many partners across the US and around the world, chlorpyrifos is on its way out. As we celebrate and build on each victory, we’re taking a moment to reflect on the decades of multi-faceted, collaborative efforts to win policies that protect workers, children and rural communities from the well-known hazards of this commonly used insecticide.
I went home to Iowa back in July, and many fields were still bare from last fall’s post-harvest tilling. Normally, field corn would have been at least knee high. Though the saying goes “knee high by the fourth of July…”, Iowans know that field corn is often head high — or taller — by the 4th. And I’m 6’ 2”!
This week, PAN joined a coalition of groups to sue the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — again — for refusing to ban the potent brain-harming pesticide chlorpyrifos. This second lawsuit, filed by attorneys from Earthjustice representing PAN and other allied organizations, demands that the pesticide be banned nationwide due to its harms to vulnerable populations like children and farmworkers.
Yet another scientific study, released today, shows just how deadly our chemical-intensive farming system has become to pollinators and other insects.
The chlorpyrifos saga continues. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made the disappointing decision that the agency would continue to allow use of the brain-harming pesticide on food crops. The announcement just meets the deadline ordered in April by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for EPA to make a final decision on a petition to ban chlorpyrifos use on food crops.
The PAN Fellowship Program supports a pathway to leadership for food and farming activists from frontline communities. This year, PAN has the honor of welcoming Donovan Kanani Cabebe, Jibril Kyser, and Héktor Calderón as our 2019 Fellows
Last week, it was reported that this past winter saw the highest honey bee colony losses on record. A few days later, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it will be suspending its annual tracking of the honey bee population due to a budget shortfall. Not a good look, USDA.
U.S. election season is already heating up, with the first presidential debate of the 2020 campaign season held two weeks ago. And as the past few years have shown, we know elections matter.
Data released from California’s pesticide drift air monitoring program — which measured air monitoring data every year from 2010 to 2018 — revealed that many pesticides were measured at significant concentrations in the air. Some pesticides were present at concentrations higher than state designated “health screening levels”, which denote a high enough concentration of pesticide drift known to regulatory agencies to cause health harms in humans. The air monitoring stations were all located at elementary, middle, and high schools.
Earlier this month, to the outrage of current employees, members of Congress, and outside observers, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced the decision to relocate two Department of Agriculture research agencies to Kansas City, Missouri.
