Agricultural Pollution
The impact of big agribusiness pollution on our nation’s waterways is severe. Nutrient pollution, mainly from excessive nitrogen and phosphorus in agricultural runoff, significantly compromises both the quality of water bodies and the safety of drinking water across the United States. Effective and comprehensive policy measures are urgently required to ensure the availability of clean and safe water for all communities, as current efforts remain inadequate to fully address these critical water quality challenges.
Top Priorities
Reduce discharges and runoff from cropland.
Strengthen conservation compliance: Increase conservation compliance for farms receiving federal aid ensures that USDA funding only goes to farmers who are showing good faith towards responsibility managing soil and water.
Economic and health benefits through federal legislation: Strengthen compliance reduces economic and healthcare costs associated with nutrient pollution and toxic algae blooms.
Targeted support for underserved communities: By creating stricter compliance requirements, USDA can ensure that communities disproportionately affected by nutrient pollution, particularly those of color and low-income, are able to enjoy access to clean water resources.
Alignment with federal conservation goals: Create stricter conservation requirements for participation in Farm Bill programs, aligns farm support with federal conservation goals and ensures a higher portion of public funds promote sustainable agriculture.
Curb CAFO contamination and biodigester expansion.
Massive reduction in nutrient pollution: Regulate the agronomic application of manure from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which produce millions of tons annually, is essential to mitigate nutrient pollution and prevent toxic algae blooms and dead zones in aquatic ecosystems.
Public health protection: Implement strict regulations on manure usage as fertilizer can significantly decrease the risk of water contamination, protecting public health by reducing nitrates and pathogens in drinking water sources near large-scale livestock operations.
Enhance regulatory compliance: Strengthen manure management practices in CAFOs improves adherence to the Clean Water Act and enhances EPA oversight, potentially involving the expansion of NPDES permit requirements and applicability to better control environmental impacts.
Promote environmental justice: Address the vast manure production by CAFOs and its environmental hazards helps safeguard the quality of life in nearby vulnerable communities, promoting equity and ensuring broader access to clean and safe water environments.
Mitigate expansion and impact of factory farm biodigesters: Work with NRCS to ensure that the nutrient and climate impacts of biodigesters are fully understood helps to limit the expansion and proliferation of this greenwashed technology
Increase accountability and transparency: Update NRCS 590 standards nationally and in State Technical Advisory Committees, ensuring effective implementation and monitoring of nutrient management plans.
Increase and improve conservation spending
Enhanced funding for water habitat conservation: Significantly boost federal funding for conservation programs focused on water habitats, including wetlands and riparian zones, to protect and restore vital habitats.
Support for ecological restoration: Support large-scale ecological restoration projects with increased appropriations for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, enhancing the health and resilience of water ecosystems.
Research funding expansion: Expand funding for research into the impacts of climate change on water resources and effective conservation strategies, ensuring policies are informed by the latest science and community needs.
Legislate authority to pay directly for water quality outcomes: Authorize the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), and possibly new programs to use performancebased payments that compensate farmers based on discrete units of water quality improvements, guaranteeing improvements to the health of waterways and ecosystems while spurring innovation.
Allocate increased funding for water quality initiatives: Increase mandatory or discretionary appropriations for conservation programs that are specifically earmarked for projects aimed at water quality improvements or geographies in particular need, which will support sustainable agriculture and reduce the economic impacts of water pollution on communities.
Economic incentives for sustainable practices: Provide discounts on crop insurance to producers who increase their resilience to extreme weather and price fluctuations, such as with increased soil organic matter and diverse crop rotations.
Enhance monitoring options: Provide funding for monitoring of water quality outcomes from projects funded under these programs to improve accountability and increase cost-effectiveness of federal investments in conservation.
Prioritize investments in vulnerable communities: Direct a higher proportion of Farm Bill conservation funds towards communities where they can make the greatest improvement to water quality to address environmental justice and ensure all communities have access to clean water resources.
Limit pollution from agribusiness processing plants.
Reduce waterway contamination: Enforce stricter pollution controls on agribusiness processing plants like slaughterhouses and wet corn milling facilities is essential to significantly reduce discharges of nitrogen, phosphorus, and other pollutants, thereby protecting aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity.
Improve public health standards: By limiting pollutants from agribusiness processing plants and enforcing stricter effluent guidelines, we can protect nearby communities from waterborne diseases and chemical exposures, ensuring the safety of drinking water sources.
Compliance with updated EPA standards: Implement the EPA’s proposed updated Effluent Limitation Guidelines for meat and poultry processing plants will substantially reduce pollution, better aligning industry practices with the Clean Water Act’s standards to enhance water quality.
Legislative and regulatory enhancements needed: Updates to National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits and compliance regulations under the Clean Water Act are critical for controlling nutrient pollution from agribusiness, necessitating legislative advocacy to enhance EPA’s enforcement capabilities
Enhance sustainability and corporate responsibility: Encourage agribusiness processing plants to adopt green infrastructure and sustainable waste management practices reduces environmental impacts and promotes corporate responsibility, contributing to the long-term sustainability of the food production industry and community health.
More of our work
Advancing Clean Water through the Farm Bill
The next Farm Bill should further efforts to reduce the threat nutrient pollution poses to clean water and ensure farmers and ranchers have the tools they need to be leading stewards of our shared water resources.
Conservation systems can go a long way toward protecting our water sources, and Farm Bill conservation programs offer an opportunity to give producers the financial and technical assistance needed to put those systems in place. Cover crops, conservation tillage, buffer strips, manure and livestock management, wetland restoration, integrated pest management and conservation crop rotations are just a few examples of water-friendly practices that can help protect water at the source, usually at a lower cost than that incurred by downstream communities to make polluted water safe for drinking, commerce, wildlife, and recreation. Many of these practices have co-benefits to soil health, public health, and more. They can stimulate rural economies and increase the resilience of supply chains.
For the next Farm Bill, our priorities are:
Prioritize Water Quality Outcomes:
Considering the huge role USDA plays in many of our diverse watersheds plagued by nutrient pollution issues across the country, we need their programs to operationalize water quality as a key part of the model of success. Measuring outcomes instead of just acres of practices allows for more cost-efficient programs and greater environmental benefits in the form of cleaner aquatic resources and more opportunities for recreation. One way to do this is the creation of a Clean Water Outcomes Matching Program within the Regional Conservation Partnership Program that would provide incentive to states to adopt outcomes-based water quality funds. Integrating an outcomes approach into current USDA conservation programs will lead to real watershed improvements as farmers and ranchers measure tangible outcomes that will inform the effectiveness of the best management practices already in place.
Modernize Crop Insurance:
The Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP) should be modernized to protect water quality and promote more diverse and sustainable cropping systems. This shift could help prepare farmers for the impacts of a changing climate, like drought and flooding, which in turn drive up costs of the program at taxpayers’ expense. We support improvements to the crop insurance program that can transition the FCIP into a real risk management strategy in a changing climate, including a good stewardship discount for farmers who use good soil health practices, expansion of Sodsaver to protect grasslands in all states, robust support for the Whole-Farm Revenue Protection program, and increased technical assistance for and stronger enforcement of conservation compliance to protect wetlands and improve conservation on highly-erodible land.
Limit CAFO Funding:
While many family farmers and ranchers aspire to be stewards of the environment, much of the pollution in our waterways comes from large industrial animal operations–many of which are foreign-owned–that in no way resemble traditional farms or ranches. These operations recklessly release vast volumes of waste that pollute our air and waterways and cause sickness and sometimes death in surrounding communities, who are disproportionately low-income and people of color. We recommend removing the 50% EQIP designation for livestock, as much of these funds currently go to industrial animal operations and subsidize environmentally harmful livestock production. Federal funding should instead be redirected and prioritize a variety of regenerative, soil-, water-quality-, equity-, and climate- based farm and ranch practices that protect water, air, soil, and community health.
Double Conservation Spending:
Farm Bill conservation programs are the largest source of conservation funding on private lands, yet demand for conservation on 13.8 million acres goes unmet because of inadequate funding every year. For major working lands programs like CSP and EQIP, this means up to 75% of applications have gone unfunded in recent years. To meet this need, the next Farm Bill should double conservation funding to improve water quality through reduced soil erosion, reduced nitrogen and phosphorus pollution to waterways, and to improve water efficiency in dry climates, as well as providing co-benefits for climate mitigation, climate resilience, soil health, and wildlife habitat.
Curious about what’s in the Farm Bill related to water quality issues? The Nutrient Pollution Work Group led a Farm Bill 101 webinar in 2022:
Factsheets
