Rein in pesticide use
Natural farmers are allowed by federal legislation to make use of only some, if any, artificial pesticides on their crops. Pesticides are dangerous to agricultural employees, customers, pollinators, and our surroundings. With the intention to develop the supply and accessibility of organically grown meals, we advocate for larger public incentives in addition to expanded analysis and technical help applications that assist encourage extra producers—notably producers of shade and smaller-scale growers—to undertake natural practices. We’re additionally utilizing our litigation instruments and coverage experience, in addition to constructing coalitions with farmworker advocates and labor and well being teams, to work towards defending individuals from poisonous pesticides, like chlorpyrifos and different brain-damaging organophosphate pesticides, and glyphosate (a weed-killer usually sprayed on corn, wheat, barley, and oats). We’re additionally working to finish the pointless and harmful makes use of of neonic pesticides in agriculture and to shut main loopholes within the regulation of pesticides in California and throughout the nation, like the one for pesticide-coated crop seeds.
Scale back meals waste
NRDC has a long-standing historical past of uplifting probably the most impactful options to meals waste, together with via our Save the Meals work on family meals waste, which is the most important collective supply in the USA. We’re working at each degree towards a nationwide objective to chop meals waste in half by 2030, an pressing precedence on condition that meals manufacturing and processing use an amazing quantity of pure assets—water, land, chemical substances, and vitality—and meals in landfills is a serious supply of the local weather pollutant methane. On the federal and state ranges, we advocate for applications to assist stop meals from being wasted within the first place, rescue surplus meals and redirect it to individuals experiencing meals insecurity, and compost meals scraps. In the meantime, our Meals Issues undertaking leverages connections between cities to handle native options to meals waste that additionally bolster group resiliency.
Reform livestock manufacturing
Well being hazards for animals, individuals, and the atmosphere are all too frequent in industrial livestock manufacturing. We’ve labored for years to lift consciousness and handle a lot of them—from the pointless use of antibiotics in livestock that exacerbates antibiotic resistance to the huge manure lagoons created on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs—aka manufacturing unit farms), which hurt close by communities, poison consuming water, and contribute to epic lifeless zones in aquatic environments. We’re urging the FDA to successfully regulate antibiotic use in livestock. We’re additionally encouraging states to step into the federal regulatory hole left by lax EPA oversight, utilizing an NRDC-developed allow to watch and regulate CAFOs that endanger the well being of close by communities and the atmosphere. We’re additionally calling for a broader shift to climate-healthy menus which can be plant-rich and rely far much less on industrially produced meat and poultry.
Fight meals insecurity
Insurance policies that meaningfully improve native energy and wealth in our meals system—together with via assist to meals service and farm employees, who’ve a number of the lowest-paying jobs in the USA—are essential to addressing disparities in entry to wholesome and inexpensive meals. We’re combating to advance environmental justice within the meals system alongside grassroots companions to present more healthy meals to college students. We’re additionally serving to states higher leverage the Supplemental Vitamin Help Program (SNAP) to make sure their residents can meaningfully entry enough and wholesome meals whereas concurrently supporting smaller-scale native farms, that are a necessary a part of a thriving regional economic system.
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