The Agriculture Lobby, representing the biggest recipients of federal crop subsides, often claim that their clients are entitled to the subsidy payments. They assert that without the government checks, or with limits on the payments, American farms and farmers would collapse, rural communities would disappear, and people might starve.

So it seems incongruous at best that they would complain that farmers are somehow being "demonized" when they are identified as beneficiaries of those worthy payments.

Post is special to Mulch by Kari Hamerschlag, Senior Agriculture and Climate Change Analyst from EWG's California office.

California is once again at the forefront of national climate change policy. California's Department of Natural Resources recently issued the nation's first state-wide strategy of its kind that evaluates climate change impacts in the state and makes key recommendations for actions to reduce these impacts across seven different sectors, including agriculture.

Many of these impacts--including severe drought, increased wildfires and floods, and unbearable heat waves are already being felt across the state. The Draft Adaptation Strategy points out what most critics of federal and state climate change legislation constantly fail to acknowledge: That taking no action to address climate change now could cost key sectors in the state "tens of billions of dollars per year in direct costs."

When it comes to agriculture, we can not afford these costs. Besides lost production and reduced yields, there are many other potential impacts, including threats to food security and wildlife, increases in pests, diseases and invasive species, increased soil erosion, and reduced soil and water quality, to name a few. Unfortunately, the draft strategy fails to include agriculture among its top twelve priority actions.

At a public hearing last week in Sacramento, EWG offered its suggestions for strengthening and better prioritizing adaptation measures in the agriculture sector.

First and foremost, the strategy needs to give a much greater emphasis to the promotion of cost-effective, adaptive land/soil management practices like cover cropping, conservation tillage and organic agriculture that also have the benefit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving water and protecting and enhancing soil quality.

We also think there should be much greater emphasis on promoting advanced integrated pest management, nutrient efficiency and organic agriculture so that farmers don't cope with the rapid expansion of weeds and pests that will come with higher temperatures by increasing the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

Finally the state needs to dramatically elevate the attention that it gives to agriculture and climate change. The state's agriculture agency currently has no staff dedicated to climate change and agriculture was all but left out of the state's implementation strategy for its landmark Climate Change Bill AB 32. EWG proposes the reallocation of resources within the state's agriculture agency to dedicate one full time staff to climate change. Given the strong links between agriculture adaptation and greenhouse gas emission reduction practices, EWG also recommends the establishment of an inter-agency working group on agriculture and climate change to ensure swifter and better coordinated action on both these fronts. It could also provide a much needed forum for the intensive stakeholder engagement and outreach that will be needed to motivate real change.

You can see our initial climate change and agriculture adaptation comments here.

Robert Howarth, a professor of Biology at Cornell University, just posted this must read piece on Mississippi River Basin agriculture pollution on the Huffington Post:

The drive to produce biofuels from corn will only worsen the nation's growing nitrogen pollution problem. As we consider a biofuels policy, we need to remember that more corn-based ethanol production equates to devastated marine fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere. Perhaps it's time to give Gulf fisheries a much-needed break.

Read it all here.

Following on last week's appearance, EWG president Ken Cook was once again on Clean Skies Sunday opposite retired general Wesley Clark who is the current co-chairman of Growth Energy. The debate this Sunday is on the issue of Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC).

Antony Zolezzi has posted an informative response to the recent kerfuffle over an organic food study done in Britain.

I have been very upset with the organic industry for the last couple of years because of the infighting within our own ranks (peeing in our own tent, so to speak), engaged in by organizations like the Organic Consumers Association and Cornucopia Institute. This internal strife has, in my opinion, impacted the growth and unity of the industry. We have for the last five years worked to have The Organic Center be the industry's scientific voice, speaking on behalf of all its various groups and companies, big and small. Now, reading the last round of articles about the UK report and the responses to it, it occurred to me that the center may finally be functioning in the role we have envisioned for it since its formation, and that there may be a glimmer of hope that the industry can get its act together and start moving forward to claim a bigger share of the market.

Zolezzi, described by one publication as "a multitasking missionary out to save the planet, one company at a time" helps food corporations like Nestle "find ways to be green and still make green."

His post is a wake up call for the organic food industry. He urges the industry to seize the moment as an opportunity to advance the cause for organics by following the lead of the Organic Center.

For more on this must read, go here.

That's how Foreign Policy writer David Rothkopf characterizes corn ethanol's patrons in Congress in his piece, You've heard of Blue Dogs, now introducing the Corn Dogs...

There is not a single credible analyst of biofuels (which is to say one that is not paid for by or affiliated with American agriculture) who thinks that corn ethanol makes a hint of sense. It is hopelessly inefficient and with every new development regarding next generation biofuels only grows more so. Brazilian sugar cane ethanol, the main target of the tariffs, is produced as much as eight times more efficiently. As such, it offers a cheaper, more abundant, more environmentally friendly alternative to American consumers at a time when one would have thought that concerns about reducing dependence on foreign oil and combating climate change would be at the forefront of our concerns.

But once again, America's electoral system rears its ugly head. So long as presidential campaigns begin in Iowa, Iowans like Grassley will use the system to put the interest of their state's three million citizens and the most vocal special interests within their midst like the corn lobby, ahead of the three hundred million or so of the rest of us. Further, in so doing, Grassley seeks to preserve yet another dimension of America's system of farm protection and subsidies that costs tax payers tens of billions each year, forces food prices higher (according to the likes of Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz) and is the single biggest distortionary factor in the world trading system. I understand why he is doing it. It's just a shame he can. The system allowing individual senators to hold up presidential nominations is regularly abused and needs to be reconsidered.

Read it all here.

EWG president Ken Cook appeared opposite retired general Wesley Clark and current co-chairman of Growth Energy talking about the long and uncertain road cellulosic ethanol has to travel to become a viable alternative to gasoline. The ethanol piece begins at 17:10.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has an excellent story by Tom Meersmen. It centers on a local dentist and conservationist who rightly thinks farmers shouldn't be planting to the water's edge.

Farmers are thwarting the law by planting corn and soybeans to the edge of the river and its tributaries, Klampe said, violating pollution rules that require a 50-foot buffer of permanent vegetation to protect streams and lakes from soil and chemical runoff.

The consequences ripple all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, where government scientists reported Monday that excessive fertilizers washing into the Mississippi River have created an oxygen-deprived "dead zone" that threatens marine life in about 3,000 square miles of ocean.

"I have nothing against farmers, but they need to respect the environment just like everyone else," Klampe said. "Rivers and streams belong to the public, not to the farmers."

Klampe's complaint -- complete with aerial photographs -- puts the spotlight on a widespread problem in rural Minnesota.

A state study estimated that more than 30 counties have 1,000 acres or more being cultivated within the required buffer area. The total acreage being farmed illegally is at least 300,000 acres and could be two or three times that much, said Tabor Hoek, a private lands specialist with the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources.

The massive inequity in farm program payments -- billions and billions lavished on only five crops while conservation programs are chronically under-funded is part of the problem. Farmers have gov't check backed incentives to plant corn and soybeans anywhere they can, up to stream banks, on marginal and highly erodeable land, on the roof of Minneapolis's Metrodome...

But its conservation compliance and enforcement that is more the issue. Who is watching to ensure that farmers are not only not planting up to the river's edge, but what toxic fertilizers and pesticides are slathered on adjacent to a main water source?

Are these farmers receiving taxpayer funded subsidies to break the law?

Lots of news on the Gulf of Mexico "Dead Zone" front so I'm jumping right into the oxygen starved water.

First from the from the editorial page of the Times Picayune, which represents the Louisiana gulf community -- the community most affected by the chemical fertilizers that run-off agriculture lands in the Mississippi River Basin -- comes a call for increased support from the government for conservation programs.

Reducing the size of the Gulf "dead zone" relies on a reduction in fertilizer and wastewater runoff into streams as far up river as Minnesota. Even with the best strategy and execution, that is a massive undertaking.

The National Research Council pointed out that reversing damage to the Gulf and other bodies of water will take years. Its report suggested launching 40 conservation projects on Mississippi River tributaries that have high levels of nutrients so that it will be easier to monitor what cleanup methods are successful.

There are others asserting that we need to change our strategy for agriculture run-off. In this Des Moines Register piece, experts commented in advance of a hypoxia federal task force set to meet about the Dead Zone in Des Moines.

Nancy Rabalais, a chief dead-zone scientist with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, noted that there is no official goal for cutting phosphorus and nitrogen loads in the Mississippi. The federal task force that will meet in Des Moines wants loads cut by 45 percent by 2015 to reduce the zone to 2,000 square miles.

In the Black Sea, levels of nitrogen and phosphorus spiked in the 1960s through the 1980s, Rabalais said. A dead zone grew from virtually nothing to more than 15,000 square miles, she added.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a huge drop in crop fertilizer use because of price spikes, and nitrogen and phosphorus levels in the lake dropped by half. The dead zone disappeared in six years, but fisheries have struggled to revive, Rabalais said.

Rabalais expects the Louisiana dead zone to shrink significantly in five to 10 years if the Mississippi contaminant loads are cut by nearly half.

"Fisheries have struggled to revive," would be a big worry. If through some Herculean effort we are able to adequately fund conservation programs to the point where they were able to restore balance to a Mississippi River Basin inundated with chemical fertilizers, and if we're able to enforce conservation compliance with those farmers who engage in the practices, we still have the problem of restoring devastated fisheries.

But some are putting forth the notion in the comment section that residential lawn run-off is a bigger contributor to the Dead Zone than ag. That's simply not true.

The USGS identified agriculture by far as the biggest contributor of nitrogen and phosphorous to the Gulf of Mexico, 66% for nitrogen and 43% for phosphorous with corn and soybeans as the main culprits from ag. Urban and population sources, i.e. lawns, account for only a small fraction at 9% for nitrogen and 12% for phosphorous.

A special correspondent for Biofuels Digest, Joelle Brink, writes commentary on the current criticism against corn ethanol. Joelle says:

Mental legends seem to flock to the biofuels industry like crows to corn, especially as critics. One thing they all have in common is not having done their homework in a long time. They're still telling us not to frighten the horses when the horses are already out to pasture.

Long discredited favorites like the dangers of corn ethanol, food vs. fuel, and indirect land use pop out of the closet like spooks at Halloween.

The fact is, the dangers of corn ethanol are not only firmly established, but continue to grow. The list includes the destruction of wildlife habitat, the loading of toxic fertilizers -- slathered onto corn crops -- into waterways and the fact that the corn ethanol industry eats two thirds of all federal subsidies classified as renewable to the detriment of essential clean technologies like wind, solar, geothermal, and truly sustainable biofuels.

Indirect land use, though controversial, is far from discredited and it is simply a fact that grains diverted to fuel increased the price of grains and food-- just how much is where the debate is at. Corn ethanol just can't be big enough to make much of a dent in our dependence on foreign oil without sending shock waves through grain markets.

Joelle goes on to blame the media for doing their job investigating the wild claims made by ethanol trade groups like Growth Energy and the RFA. Claims that ethanol does not damage engines, is clean and will make us energy independent even though converting the entire US corn crop into ethanol will only displace 12% of the gasoline we use.

But it gets puzzling when:

International organizations are no different, and are perhaps worse because their leaders log so many hours in the air en route to meetings with counterparts on other continents. The combination of jet lag and constant exposure to the received wisdom of counterparts at the same lofty level is as fertile a ground for ideological pandemics as for physical ones.

I have to admit, "ideological pandemic" is a cool turn of phrase that I will appropriate. But to blame the skepticism that some have on biofuels on jet lag, well that makes as much sense as blaming the agriculture fertilizer run-off that exacerbates the Gulf "Dead Zone" on residential lawns (see comments).

The video above is of the new John Deere 48 row planter called the DB 120 (T1000 was taken) in action.

The Des Moines Register wrote about the DB 120 as:

Just four of the "Green Monsters," which Deere makes in conjunction with Bauer Built Manufacturing of Paton, have been made available to farmers before Deere begins marketing in earnest for the 2010 planting season.

Mike Brelsford, who farms about 5,000 acres north of Perry, tried out the planter this spring and was impressed enough to buy one. Deere and Brelsford wouldn't talk cost, but published reports have put the price above $335,000.

"My old 36-row planter could do about 60 acres an hour, this one can do 85 acres an hour," Brelsford said one day after signing for the purchase at the Van Wall Group's Perry dealership.

The 48-row planter is symbolic of how Deere has followed the growth of agriculture. Since the 1950s, Deere's planters have expanded from the four- to six-row planters that were standard then to the 36-row planter in 2003 and now the 48-row planter that has a 240-foot span.

The folks at Corn and Soybean Digest are even more bullish:

Imagine you're planting down the middle of your local high school football field. With John Deere/Bauer Built's newest planter, the DB120, you'd only have 20 ft. from each outside row unit to the sidelines - thanks to its 120-ft.-wide toolbar.

"As growers get bigger, they're looking for more productivity from their equipment to plant more acres per day," says Rob Rippchen, Deere's division marketing manager for the new planter. "At 120 ft., the DB120 has 30% more productivity than our 36-row, DB90 planter and will match up wit­­­­h our 12-row corn heads."

Depending on field conditions, the DB120 should plant 90-100 acres/hour at the recommended 5-5½ mph, according to Rippchen.

So in the spirit of a machine that can plant 100 acres an hour, Mulch is sponsoring a naming contest for the DB 120 since "Green Monster" is already taken by Fenway Park. One intrepid EWGer has already offered the "Obliterator".

The winner of the naming contest will have their choice of either:

The last piece of unfarmed soil in Iowa.

Or the sole existing chunk of sod from an Iowa grass waterway, both prizes courtesy of EWG's office in Ames, IA.

So let us see some of your names in the comment section below.