April, 29 2025, 01:42pm EDT
New Report Reveals No-Till’s Massive Pesticide Problem
While the chemical industry promotes no-till as “regenerative” USDA data prove its reliance on toxic pesticides
A new report from Friends of the Earth refutes the widely-held assumption that conventional no-till agriculture is “regenerative.” Based on a first-of-its-kind analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, the report finds that most no-till systems are so heavily dependent on toxic herbicides to manage weeds that a staggering one-third of the U.S.’s total annual pesticide use (a term that includes herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides) can be attributed to no- and minimum-till corn and soy production alone.
Chemical-intensive agriculture predominates in the U.S. not through the fault of farmers, but because that is what public policies and markets support. Farmers have widely adopted no-till to minimize soil erosion and now must be supported to reduce agrochemical inputs.
The report finds that the vast majority (93%) of acreage of the top two no- and minimum-till crops, corn and soy, use toxic herbicides that have devastating consequences for soil life and human health. These chemicals, being broadcast across nearly 100 million acres nationwide, predominantly in the Heartland and Great Plains, have been linked to cancer, birth defects, infertility, neurotoxicity, disruption of the gut microbiome, endocrine disruption, and more. The majority (61%) of use is chemicals that are classified as highly hazardous. Glyphosate, the cancer-linked main ingredient in the widely criticized weedkiller Roundup, is the most widely used herbicide in no-till corn and soy.
The cost of chemical-intensive no-till goes beyond impacts on our health: It is also destroying the soil that grows our food. The pesticides widely used in conventional no-till devastate soil health, harming the soil microbiome and invertebrates like worms and beetles, as well as essential pollinators and other wildlife. Healthy, living soil improves farmers’ resilience to droughts and floods, conserves water, and draws more carbon down from the atmosphere. Soil ravaged by toxic pesticides, on the other hand, threatens resources needed for a healthy food system.
The report debunks the faulty assumption that conventional no-till is a climate solution, summarizing extensive scientific research showing there is no clear relationship between no-till and soil carbon sequestration. And the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the fossil-fuel-based synthetic pesticides and fertilizers used in no- and minimum-till corn and soy are equivalent to that of 11.4 million cars on the road over an entire year — about the number of cars in the top 9 no-till states combined.
“As regenerative agriculture takes center stage in national conversations about how to make America healthy, it’s crucial that we advance truly regenerative agriculture,” said Dr. Kendra Klein, Deputy Director of Science at Friends of the Earth. “Conventional no-till, soaked in toxic pesticides that threaten our children’s health, ravage soil, and exacerbate climate change, is taking us in the wrong direction.”
The ascendance of no-till is linked to the chemical industry’s attempt to deepen farmers’ dependence on their toxic products. Chemical companies such as Imperial Chemical Industries and Chevron conducted no-till experiments and helped spread the concept of industrial no-till in the 1970s, recognizing it as an opportunity to increase the market for their herbicides. Currently, pesticide giant Bayer is offering to pay farmers to practice no-till as part of their “regenerative agriculture” program.
“Major food companies investing in regenerative agriculture need to avoid greenwashed conventional no-till and instead support the transition to legitimately regenerative agriculture that will protect soil health, human health — and their future bottom line,” said Sarah Starman, Senior Campaigner of Food & Agriculture with Friends of the Earth.
Truly regenerative agriculture cannot be boiled down to single practices, it works with the farming system as a whole. Research shows that careful tillage in holistic farming systems can achieve better soil outcomes than chemical-intensive no-till agriculture.
A central tenet of truly regenerative agriculture is dramatic reduction of harmful agrochemicals. Research shows that reducing use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers in conventional agriculture is not only possible, it can increase yields by fostering beneficial insects and healthy soil and can increase profitability by reducing farmers’ input costs.
A leading form of truly regenerative agriculture is organic farming. And unlike the term ‘regenerative,’ the USDA organic seal is enforced through a rigorous legal standard. Decades of research shows that organic farms, on average, improve soil health, climate resilience, and soil carbon sequestration; reduce emissions; and protect biodiversity, human health, and community wellbeing.
Key findings
- At least 93% of no-till and minimum-till corn and soy acreage in the U.S. uses synthetic herbicides, representing an area the size of California (99.5 million acres).
- Herbicide use in no-till corn and soy can be associated with 33% of total annual pesticide use in the U.S. — 285 million out of 851 million pounds of pesticides.
- The majority of use (61%) is herbicides classified as highly hazardous to human health and/or the environment — 173 million pounds.
- Glyphosate accounts for an estimated 40% of the total use of herbicides in no-till corn and soy.
- At least 26 million pounds of additional herbicides are used annually due to conventional no- and minimum-till management in corn and soy.
- At least 89% of conventional no- and minimum-till corn and soy acres rely on seeds genetically engineered to be herbicide tolerant.
- Neonicotinoid seed coatings are used on up to 100% of conventional no-till corn acreage.
- Fossil-fuel-based inputs to no- and minimum-till corn and soy in the form of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers can be associated with ~49.3 million metric tons of CO2-equivalent emissions.
- Conventional no-till production does not increase soil carbon and in some cases has been found to reduce it.
- Tillage is not universally detrimental to soil health and can be incorporated into regenerative farming systems.
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
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Amazon Won't Display Tariff Costs After Trump Whines to Bezos
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said all companies should be "displaying how much tariffs contribute to the total price of products."
Apr 29, 2025
Amazon said Tuesday that it would not display tariff costs next to products on its website after U.S. President Donald Trump called the e-commerce giant's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, to complain about the reported plan.
Citing an unnamed person familiar with Amazon's supposed plan, Punchbowl Newsreported that "the shopping site will display how much of an item's cost is derived from tariffs—right next to the product's total listed price."
Many Amazon products come from China. While U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed Sunday that "there is a path" to a tariff deal with the Chinese government, Trump has recently caused global economic alarm by hitting the country with a 145% tax and imposing a 10% minimum for other nations.
According toCNN, which spoke with two senior White House officials on Tuesday, Trump's call to Bezos "came shortly after one of the senior officials phoned the president to inform him of the story" from Punchbowl.
"Of course he was pissed," one officials said of Trump. "Why should a multibillion-dollar company pass off costs to consumers?"
Asked about how the call with Bezos went, Trump told reporters: "Great. Jeff Bezos was very nice. He was terrific. He solved the problem very quickly, and he did the right thing, and he's a good guy."
Earlier Tuesday, during a briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called Amazon's reported plan "a hostile and political act," and said that "this is another reason why Americans should buy American."
Leavitt also asked why Amazon didn't have such displays during the Biden administration and held up a printed version of a 2021 Reutersreport about the company's "compliance with the Chinese government edict" to stop allowing customer ratings and reviews in China, allegedly prompted by negative feedback left on a collection President Xi Jinping's speeches and writings.
Asked whether Bezos is "still a Trump supporter," Leavitt said that she "will not speak to" the president's relationship with him.
As CNBCdetailed Tuesday:
Less than two hours after the press briefing, an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC that the company was only ever considering listing tariff charges on some products for Amazon Haul, its budget-focused shopping section.
"The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store has considered listing import charges on certain products," the spokesperson said. "This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties."
But in a follow-up statement an hour after that one, the spokesperson clarified that the plan to show tariff surcharges was "never approved" and is "not going to happen."
In response to Bloomberg also reporting on Amazon's claim that tariff displays were never under consideration for the company's main site, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wrote on social media Tuesday, "Good move."
Before Amazon publicly killed any plans for showing consumers the costs from Trump's import taxes, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the chamber's floor Tuesday that companies should be "displaying how much tariffs contribute to the total price of products."
"I urge more companies, particularly national retailers that compete with Amazon, to adopt this practice. If Amazon has the courage to display why prices are going up because of tariffs, so should all of our other national retailers who compete with them. And I am calling on them to do it now," he said.
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) on Tuesday framed the whole incident as an example of how "Trump has created a government by and for the billionaires," declaring: "If anyone ever doubted that Trump, and Musk, and Bezos, and the billionaires are all [on] one team, just look at what happened at Amazon today. Bezos immediately caved and walked back a plan to tell Americans how much Trump's tariffs are costing them."
Casar also claimed Bezos wants "big tax cuts and sweatheart deals," and pointed to Amazon's Prime Video paying $40 million to license a documentary about the life of First Lady Melania Trump. In addition to the film agreement, Bezos has come under fire for Amazon's $1 million donation to the president's inauguration fund.
As the owner of
The Washington Post, Bezos—the world's second-richest person, after Trump adviser Elon Musk—also faced intense criticism for blocking the newspaper's planned endorsement of the president's 2024 Democratic challenger, Kamala Harris, and demanding its opinion page advocate for "personal liberties and free markets."
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Medicare for All, Says Sanders, Would Show American People 'Government Is Listening to Them'
"The goal of the current administration and their billionaire buddies is to pile on endless cuts," said one nurse and union leader. "Even on our hardest days, we won't stop fighting for Medicare for All."
Apr 29, 2025
On Tuesday, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Debbie Dingell of Michigan reintroduced the Medicare for All Act, re-upping the legislative quest to enact a single-payer healthcare system even as the bill faces little chance of advancing in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives or Senate.
Hundreds of nurses, healthcare providers, and workers from across the country joined the lawmakers for a press conference focused on the bill's reintroduction in front of the Capitol on Tuesday.
"We have the radical idea of putting healthcare dollars into healthcare, not into profiteering or bureaucracy," said Sanders during the press conference. "A simple healthcare system, which is what we are talking about, substantially reduces administrative costs, but it would also make life a lot easier, not just for patients, but for nurses" and other healthcare providers, he continued.
"So let us stand together," Sanders told the crowd. "Let us do what the American people want and let us transform this country. And when we pass Medicare for All, it's not only about improving healthcare for all our people—it's doing something else. It's telling the American people that, finally, the American government is listening to them."
Under Medicare for All, the government would pay for all healthcare services, including dental, vision, prescription drugs, and other care.
"It is a travesty when 85 million people are uninsured or underinsured and millions more are drowning in medical debt in the richest nation on Earth," said Jayapal in a statement on Tuesday.
In 2020, a study in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet found that a single-payer program like Medicare for All would save Americans more than $450 billion and would likely prevent 68,000 deaths every year. That same year, the Congressional Budget Office found that a single-payer system that resembles Medicare for All would yield some $650 billion in savings in 2030.
Members of National Nurses United (NNU), the nation's largest union of registered nurses, were also at the press conference on Tuesday.
In a statement, the group highlighted that the bill comes at a critical time, given GOP-led threats to programs like Medicaid.
"The goal of the current administration and their billionaire buddies is to pile on endless cuts and attacks so that we become too demoralized and overwhelmed to move forward," said Bonnie Castillo, registered nurse and executive director of NNU. "Even on our hardest days, we won't stop fighting for Medicare for All."
Per Sanders' office, the legislation has 104 co-sponsors in the House and 16 in the Senate, which is an increase from the previous Congress.
A poll from Gallup released in 2023 found that 7 in 10 Democrats support a government-run healthcare system. The poll also found that across the political spectrum, 57% of respondents believe the government should ensure all people have healthcare coverage.
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Advocates Warn GOP Just Unveiled 'Most Dangerous Higher Ed Bill in US History'
"This is the boldest attempt we've seen in recent history to segregate higher education along racial and class lines," said the Debt Collective.
Apr 29, 2025
At a markup session held by a U.S. House committee on the Republican Party's recently unveiled higher education reform bill Tuesday, one Democratic lawmaker had a succinct description for the legislation.
"This bill is a dream-killer," said Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) of the so-called Student Success and Taxpayer Savings Plan, which was introduced by Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) as part of an effort to find $330 billion in education programs to offset President Donald Trump's tax plan.
Tasked with helping to make $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans possible, Walberg on Monday proposed changes to the Pell Grant program, which has provided financial aid to more than 80 million low-income students since it began in 1972. The bill would allocate more funding to the program but would also reduce the number of students who are eligible for the grants, changing the definition of a "full-time" student to one enrolled in at least 30 semester hours each academic year—up from 12 hours. Students would be cut off from the financial assistance entirely if they are enrolled less than six hours per semester.
David Baime, senior vice president for government relations for the American Association of Community Colleges, suggested the legislation doesn't account for the realities faced by many students who benefit from Pell Grants.
"These students are almost always working a substantial number of hours each week and often have family responsibilities. Pell Grants help them meet the cost of tuition and required fees," Baime toldInside Higher Ed. "We commend the committee for identifying substantial additional resources to help finance Pell, but it should not come at the cost of undermining the ability of low-income working students to enroll at a community college."
The draft bill would also end subsidized loans, which don't accrue interest when a student is still in college and gives borrowers a six-month grace period after graduation, starting in July 2026. More than 30 million borrowers currently have subsidized loans.
The proposal would also reduce the number of student loan repayment options from those offered by the Biden administration to just two, with borrowers given the option for a fixed monthly amount paid over a certain period of time or an income-based plan.
At the markup session on Tuesday, Bonamici pointed to her own experience of paying for college and law school "through a combination of grants and loans and work study and food stamps," and noted that her Republican colleagues on the committee also "graduated from college."
"And more than half of them have gone on to earn advanced degrees," said the congresswoman. "And yet those same individuals who benefited so much from accessing higher education are supporting a bill that will prevent others from doing so."
“In a time when higher ed is being attacked, this bill is another assault,” @RepBonamici calls out committee leaders for wanting to gut financial aid.
“With this bill, they will be taking that opportunity [of higher ed] away from others. This bill is a dream killer.” pic.twitter.com/UjTYvnOEKv
— Student Borrower Protection Center (@theSBPC) April 29, 2025
Democrats on the committee also spoke out against provisions that would cap loans a student can take out for graduate programs at $100,000; the Grad PLUS program has allowed students to borrow up to the cost of attendance.
The Parent PLUS program, which has been found to provide crucial help to Black families accessing higher education, would also be restricted.
"Black students, brown students, first-generation college students, first-generation Americans, will not have access to college," said Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.).
“We cannot take away access to loans, and not replace it with anything else, not make the system better. We know the outcome here—Black, brown, and poor students will not figure it out. Instead, only elite students from the 1% will continue to access education.”@RepSummerLee🙇 pic.twitter.com/oGbRH154Ed
— Student Borrower Protection Center (@theSBPC) April 29, 2025
As the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) warned last week, eliminating the Grad PLUS program without also lowering the cost of graduate programs would "subject millions of future borrowers to an unregulated and predatory private student loan market, while doing little to reduce overall student debt and the need to borrow."
Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director for SBPC, told The Hill that the draft bill is "an attack on students and working families with student loan debt."
"We've seen an array of really problematic proposals that are on the table for congressional Republicans," Canchola Bañez said. "Many of these would cause massive spikes for families with monthly student loan payments."
With the proposal, which Republicans hope to pass through reconciliation with a simple majority, the party would be "restructuring higher education for the worse," said the Debt Collective.
"It's the most dangerous higher ed bill in U.S. history," said the student loan borrowers union. "It strips the Department of Education of virtually every authority to cancel student debt. Eliminates every repayment program. Abolishes subsidized loans."
"This is the boldest attempt we've seen in recent history to segregate higher education along racial and class lines," the group added. "We have to push back."
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