Chemicals, Food, Agriculture and Climate Team
Our collaborative team focuses on the connection between the petroleum-derived chemicals used in our food system and their harmful impacts on both community health and climate throughout their lifecycle, from extraction, to production, to use in farms, to disposal. Our members include organizations and experts in food and agriculture systems, climate resilience, public health, and farmworker advocates.
Pesticides and other agrochemicals are some of the most pervasive chemicals in our environment. They are in the air, water, and soil, and they enter our bodies through the food we eat. All along their production cycle – from the fossilized carbon feedstocks extracted and carried through dirty pipelines, to the manufacturing facilities in neighborhoods where people live, work, pray, and play – they are responsible for toxic pollution that makes communities sick and that disrupts the climate of our planet. From the farmworkers, who are occupationally exposed, to the community members at the fenceline of the pesticide production facility, Environmental Justice communities are most impacted. The CFAC team acknowledges that we can’t address climate change or create environmental justice without looking at the outsized scope of hazardous pollution and greenhouse gasses caused by the agrochemical industry.
Our members know there are better ways to farm. We can meet the real need to feed the people of this planet without destroying it in the process. That will require a transition from chemical-dependent agriculture to a system that values human health, soil-restorative and regenerative practices, community food sovereignty, and strengthening regional food economies. To that end, we are demanding changes to our agricultural system that:
- Protect workers from pesticide exposure and exploitation;
- Address the historical inequities faced by Indigenous peoples, Black farmers, and farmworker communities of varying origins;
- Prioritize community food sovereignty;
- Redirect funding that incentivizes the crops, farms, and farming methods that drive demand for chemicals, and instead provide incentives that reward farmers employing safer, more sustainable, regenerative, climate-resilient practices;
- Eliminate support for industrial-scale livestock operations, and support reforms that will reduce corporate consolidation in this sector and instead support independent farmers and ranchers.
Get involved
To inquire more about the CFAC team, email co-coordinators Margaret Reeves and Kathy Martin.
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March 26, 2024
Farm Bill Updates
We're advocating for a Farm Bill that reduces pesticide use, protects farmworker, and builds food sovereignty. In 2023, we wrote letters to both Agriculture Committees that were endorsed by 50 organizations; and sent members to D.C. where they held 23 in-person meetings with members of Congress that we complemented with another five virtual meetings. We continue our farm bill work this year, with a focus on supporting CFAC member organizations, including Alianza Nacional de Campesinas. Learn about the marker bills we support, and the status of the farm bill in this update blog.
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June 12, 2023
Six policies that should be included in this Farm Bill
This year, the environmental health and justice organizations, small-scale farmers and farmworker advocates that make up Coming Clean’s Climate, Food Agriculture and Climate (CFAC) team have been educating lawmakers on the need for a transformative 2023 Farm Bill. In a letter to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees and through in-person office visits, we’ve called for a Farm Bill that prioritizes community food sovereignty and equity, protects workers against exploitation, violence, and health harm, and incentivizes farmers to employ safer, regenerative, climate resilient practices that avoid the use of pesticides. Right now, the House Agriculture Committee members are submitting new language that will inform the contents of the 2023 Farm Bill, with a June 16th deadline. We are urging legislators to support the the following marker bills. Leer en español.
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April 17, 2023
Battle lines being draw as Farm Bill looms
Some environmental advocates are pushing for more support for small farms that practice regenerative agriculture, said Jessica Swan, the community outreach organizer for the Agri-Cultura Network, a farmer cooperative in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She and her colleagues want the new Farm Bill to include new rules that not only cut chemically intensive farming practices nationwide and protect workers from pesticide-related illnesses, but also make farmer conservation programs more accessible to people who own small or urban farms. They also want to see crop insurance and commodity programs reward more farmers for organic and regenerative practices. In a letter to House Agriculture Committee Chairman David Scott, Agri-Cultura and 49 other food and agriculture organizations called for these measures and also called on Congress to block funds that support large, polluting animal agriculture operations.
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March 23, 2023
Coming Clean lobbies for a Farm Bill that centers human health by reducing reliance on toxic chemicals
Today, Coming Clean hosted a lobby day for members to meet with Congressional leaders to urge them to prioritize community food sovereignty and farmworker protections in the upcoming farm bill reauthorization, while incentivizing reductions in pesticide use. Members from across the country, including small farmers and farmworkers, scheduled visits throughout the day with lawmakers from their districts to highlight reforms that are most important to them and their communities.
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November 16, 2022
The next Farm Bill can only be “climate-smart” if it reduces agricultural reliance on pesticides, says diverse coalition
Today, 50 organizations sent a public letter to the House Agriculture Committee and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, calling for a transformative 2023 Farm Bill. They urged the legislators to incentivize reductions in pesticide use, include provisions to protect farmworker health, and increase funding and research for organic and regenerative farming, representing fenceline communities, food system workers and farmworkers, family farmers, businesses, scientists, and environmental health and justice organizations.The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that global agriculture contributes 34% of the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change, but the Farm Bill has not explicitly addressed climate change since 1990. An estimated 1 billion pounds of pesticides, manufactured from fossil fuel feedstocks, are used on United States farms each year. The next Farm Bill could decrease agricultural carbon emissions by incentivizing farmers to reduce reliance on pesticides, in favor of regenerative, climate-resilient practices such as certified organic farming, the letter states.
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