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‘Earth To Beer’: Oregon, US breweries join project to brew a beer with environment in mind

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Friday, March 22, 2024

Editor’s note: This is a re-publication of the Oregon Brews and News weekly beer and cider newsletter, written by Oregonian/OregonLive beer writer Andre Meunier. To subscribe to have the newsletter delivered every Thursday at noon to your email inbox, go to oregonlive.com/newsletters and sign up.***Eric Steen is a brewing industry renaissance man. From marketing, to media relations, to event planning, to beer expert TV appearances, he does it all. And, more importantly, he’s a great human who cares about people.One of Steen’s passions is conservation and environmentalism, and in the past he has brought his interests together with projects like Cheers to the Land, The Oregon I Am, and Beers Made By Walking. Now, Steen is organizing Earth To Beer, a national movement with a goal for participating breweries to create a packaged beer that’s better for the planet. The initiative asks breweries to intentionally source environmentally responsible ingredients for their beer, then donate a portion of proceeds to a local environmentally focused nonprofit.Steen’s work is highly recognized and respected in the brewing world, so it’s no surprise that more than 35 breweries are on board, including Oregon names like Hopworks, Steeplejack, Little Beast, Level and Ferment. They will begin releasing beers starting on April 1, and continue through Earth Day on April 22.“We created Earth To Beer to advance the conversation about the importance of sourcing sustainable ingredients and supporting good agriculture,” Steen said. “While this is a national campaign in terms of the range of breweries involved and the audience we’re trying to connect with, it’s very much a local initiative in terms of the very real impacts we expect and hope to see.”Each brewery picks its own style to make, based on what sustainable ingredients they choose to use and what beer they know their fans will want. They also receive a unique, eye-catching label, created by Earth To Beer and designed to align with individual brewery’s branding while employing a common Earth to Beer layout supporting the movement’s overall look and feel.The project also offers scholarships — funded by Earth To Beer sponsor Arryved — to BIPOC-owned and newly opened breweries to cover costs.“Because beer is an agricultural product, I’ve been inspired by the relationship between conservation and craft beer for years,” Steen said. “It just feels like a really organic pathway to make some real change and work with a lot of people who often have the passion to make more sustainable choices but need help establishing a jumping off point.”Cheers to the project and to Eric. Start looking for Earth To Beer cans soon, and get a full list of participating breweries and sponsors at earthtobeer.com.Mayfly buzzing at 5 years oldRyan Born opened Mayfly Taproom & Bottle Shop nearly a year to the day before COVID-19 shut the city down, making its first year — always tough for a new business — even harder.“Pivot after pivot, the roller coaster ride is real,” Born says. “My original manager Morgan talked about it not being the kind of roller coaster you ride at a big theme park, but the kind at a state fair that they just assembled and is being operated by some 17-year-old kid who got just a few hours of training. It feels like it might all come crumbling down any minute.”Well said, Ryan and Morgan, but the crew at the excellent North Portland beer bar has made it to five years, and they’re ready to party for three days this weekend, from Friday through Sunday.“We made it to 5 thanks to our ridiculously amazing community,” Born says. Here are all the details:Friday: The day will feature “our friends Taylor and Kailin from Steward’s Valley Farm,” Born says. “They are amazing folks with a great little family farm in Oregon City.” The first feature will be a special one-off keg of Babi from Living Häus Beer Co., a Czech-style black lager that is easy drinking and refreshing with just a touch of roast character and a toasty malt bill. It’s been infused with a Steward’s Valley roasted coffee from Guji, Ethiopia. The second feature will be part of Little Brother PDX’s pop-up menu, featuring some overwintered kale as well as dried beans and chilies from last year’s harvest. Their full menu consists of their “Looper Burger,” house bratwurst, braised kale and beans, and banana bread with chocolate chips and hazelnuts.Saturday: Champs Burgers will be debuting a new burger grind made from 50-day dry-aged NY strips, Drag Bingo with Peachy Springs, and Yovu Beer from Nate Yovu, a North Portlander who brewed up a special batch of what he’s calling a “White Lager” — a sort of Cold IPA/Hazy hybrid. It’s called Ghostman and clocks in at 5%.Sunday: This is Mayfly’s fifth year partnering with Yoga+Beer, so what better way to start its sixth year with a morning practice. Tickets available here. Machetes.PDX makes psychedelic looking marbled “quesadillas.” This Mexico City street food is a long tortilla (shaped like a machete blade) that you can fill with up to four guisados (braised or stewed meats, vegetables, etc).“The road to 5 hasn’t been easy,” Born says, “but treating Mayfly (and our plaza) as a community space to host pop-ups, book clubs, makers markets and many other events has allowed us to support so many additional small/tiny businesses in our community, and the relationships that have been formed have helped us get to where we are today.“We look forward to hosting many more of these events and continuing to bring people together over a good pint, and a great plate of food,” he says.Noon-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday, noon-9 p.m. Sunday. 8350 N. Fenwick Ave.Best of Craft Beer Awards heldThe Best of Craft Beer Awards were just held in Redmond, and the competition, billed as “one of America’s fastest growing beer awards,” featured 389 breweries that submitted almost 2,000 entries in 55 categories. Over 100 judges sampled the offerings over three days, then awarded 169 gold, silver, and bronze medals to 123 breweries located around the world. The highlights:2024 Large-Sized Brewery of the Year: Breakside Brewery & Taproom of Milwaukie2024 Medium-Sized Brewery of the Year: Best Day Brewing of Sausalito, California2024 Small-size Brewery of the Year: McMenamins Old Saint Francis School of BendGet all the results here.Sports Bra snub not appreciatedMy colleague Lizzy Acker is, like me, a fan of The Sports Bra, the women’s sports themed bar on Northeast Broadway. So Lizzy, a trending and arts reporter, was not pleased this week when a list of the country’s best sports bars came out and listed one particular Portland sports bar but not another particular sports bar. Read her entertaining take here to learn more.Beer of the WeekBier Wulf Bavarian IPA by Double Mountain Brewery & CideryCourtesy of Double Mountain Brewery & CideryBier Wulf Bavarian IPA, Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery: The Hood River brewery describes its newest seasonal release as a “testament to the Bavarian IPA style but with a twist. It unifies the earthy tones of German hops with the vibrant citrus notes of American counterparts. The German malts provide a complementary foundation, allowing the hops to take center stage. While the use of Hygge yeast lends a clean ferment with light fruit esters, resulting in a dry finish and a pleasantly bready mouthfeel.” Brewery notes: “Notes of ripe citrus, grapefruit pith, and spicy evergreen howling across the palate. The appearance of Bier Wulf is akin to “Sunshine in Brugge,” while its aroma evokes images of wildflowers, bright citrus, and sticky fruit. With a medium bitterness on the tongue and a dry, crisp finish complemented by hints of pineapple, orange, lemon, and pine, Bier Wulf promises an exploration of all of your inner wolf senses.” Bier Wulf also comes with an accompanying Spotify playlist curated by the brewers — scan the code on the bottle with Spotify to access the playlist. Bier Wulf now available for purchase in 500ml refillable bottles and on tap at all Double Mountain locations and in retail throughout the Northwest.What to do, what to do?Upright Brewing 15th anniversary: I’ll be writing more in depth on this soon, but mark the date on Saturday, April 6, when Upright will throw down to celebrate 15 trips around the sun. Founder and head brewer Alex Ganum hosts the bash at the brewery’s main location, 240 N. Broadway, with collabs and a new Upright release. This party, from 1-9 p.m., is sure to draw the who’s who among the Portland brewing community to celebrate this cherished brewery. See you there.Tualatin Valley’s Tap Season: Launched by Explore Tualatin Valley, the destination marketing organization that markets Tualatin Valley as a travel destination, Tap Season is a promotion for beer and cider lovers that includes exclusive event and specials, as well as the re-launch of the successful Tualatin Valley Ale Trail Mobile Passport — a digital passport where beer connoisseurs will earn points for prizes by checking in to any of the 37 participating producers, including Breakside, Ancestry, Bull Run Cider, Cooper Mountain, Golden Valley and Portland Cider.Events include:Alpaca Happy Hour 1: Noon-3 p.m., Hillsboro Downtown Station, 320 S.E. Baseline St., Hillsboro. Come to the food carts at Hillsboro Downtown Station and snap a pic with the alpacas, enjoy happy hour specials on some of your favorite Tualatin Valley beers and ciders, and hang out with the Tap Season Street Team, which will be handing out free swag)Alpaca Happy Hour 2: 4-6 p.m., Stickmen Brewing’s Tualatin Beer Hall, 19475 S.W. 118th Ave., Suite 1, Tualatin. The Beer Hall is also hosting an alpaca happy hour. Meet the alpacas while you enjoy happy hour specials on some of your favorite Tualatin Valley beers and ciders. The Tap Season Street Team will hand out free Tap Season swag again.Hood River Hard-Pressed Cider Fest: Now in its ninth year, this annual event, held this year on April 27, invites seasoned and novice cider enthusiasts to sample ciders from Columbia River Gorge and Pacific Northwest hard cidermakers. It offers over 60 ciders on tap from more than 30 cideries. Held at the Port of Hood River Event Site, this year the event expands its footprint to provide beachfront access to the Columbia River and the option for attendees to bring their own glass, contributing to what organizers call an “immersive and sustainable Hood River experience.” Beyond cider sampling, the daylong event boasts artisan food, art vendors, music and a children’s play area. For more information or tickets, visit hoodriverciderfest.com. For more information on Hood River, or to book a stay at one of Hood River’s lodging options visit visithoodriver.com/stay.New Releases of NotePaloma Sour, Migration BrewingColby SchlickerPaloma Sour, Migration Brewing: This beer, released for the second time on Wednesday, won the Experimental Beers category at the Best of Craft Beer Awards. This gently tart, golden soured ale was fermented before being inoculated with Migration’s house lactobacillus culture, then was aged in Reposado Tequila barrels before being blended with ample amounts of grapefruit puree, lime juice and zest. A dusting of Hawaiian sea salt was added to round out this Paloma-style cocktail sour. Brewery notes: “Hints of oak complement delicate tequila and citrus notes, while gentle acidity and light salinity combine for a complex refreshing beer that resonates with beer and cocktail drinkers alike.”Farm-to-Market Hazy Imperial IPA, Laurelwood Brewing and Zupan’s Markets: The 28th installment in Zupan’s Farm-to-Market beer series, which began in 2015, is this hazy double IPA with the Northeast Portland brewery — the second between the two. Brewery notes: “Smooth, resiny grapefruit flavor with a tropical, dank citrus aroma, set against a backdrop of rosy straw-orange haze and a light yellow-orange tan head. The beer is crafted from a blend of premium malts and a diverse selection of hops for a complex yet balanced profile.” Available exclusively at Zupan’s Markets in 16-ounce cans.Fresh Squeezed Non-Alcoholic IPA, Deschutes Brewery: The Bend and Portland brewery’s latest release is a nonalcoholic version of its No. 1 selling IPA, Fresh Squeezed. Deschutes has invested heavily in NA over the past five years, and NA Fresh Squeezed is crafted in-house through a partnership with Sustainable Beverage Technologies and uses the company’s patented BrewVo® technology in combination with Deschutes’ proprietary brewing methods. Brewery notes: “Brilliantly balanced and features the same Citra and Mosaic hops as the original, delivering refreshing notes of bright citrus and tropical fruit, with less than 0.5% ABV.” Fresh Squeezed NA comes on the heels of Deschutes’ first packaged non-alcoholic beer, Black Butte Non-Alcoholic, which quickly became the brewery’s highest rate-of-sale six-pack. Both are available nationwide at select retailers, bars, and restaurants. Use the “beer finder” to find the closest retailer or here to purchase the new non-alcoholic options online.McMenamins Hard Seltzer – Lemon Raspberry, McMenamins West Linn Brewery: The brewery group is the latest to enter the “seltzer space,” as industry lingo calls it. McMenamins says it plans to have different flavors of its Hard Seltzer in the future, but as a tribute to its well-known Ruby Ale, Raspberry is the first. Brewery notes: “Light and refreshing, this low calorie sipper delivers delicious flavors of raspberry and a hint of lemon for a crisp and effervescent experience.” Now available on draft at McMenamins locations and in cans starting Friday, March 29.— Andre Meunier has been writing about Northwest beer and breweries since 2016; reach him at 503-221-8488 or ameunier@oregonian.com, and sign up for his weekly newsletter, Oregon Brews and News. Instagram: @oregonianbeerguy

The Portland-born effort asks breweries to source environmentally responsible ingredients for a beer then donate to a local environmentally focused nonprofit. Also in this beer news roundup, North Portland's Mayfly throws a three-day party this weekend for its fifth anniversary.

Editor’s note: This is a re-publication of the Oregon Brews and News weekly beer and cider newsletter, written by Oregonian/OregonLive beer writer Andre Meunier. To subscribe to have the newsletter delivered every Thursday at noon to your email inbox, go to oregonlive.com/newsletters and sign up.

***

Eric Steen is a brewing industry renaissance man. From marketing, to media relations, to event planning, to beer expert TV appearances, he does it all. And, more importantly, he’s a great human who cares about people.

One of Steen’s passions is conservation and environmentalism, and in the past he has brought his interests together with projects like Cheers to the Land, The Oregon I Am, and Beers Made By Walking. Now, Steen is organizing Earth To Beer, a national movement with a goal for participating breweries to create a packaged beer that’s better for the planet. The initiative asks breweries to intentionally source environmentally responsible ingredients for their beer, then donate a portion of proceeds to a local environmentally focused nonprofit.

Steen’s work is highly recognized and respected in the brewing world, so it’s no surprise that more than 35 breweries are on board, including Oregon names like Hopworks, Steeplejack, Little Beast, Level and Ferment. They will begin releasing beers starting on April 1, and continue through Earth Day on April 22.

“We created Earth To Beer to advance the conversation about the importance of sourcing sustainable ingredients and supporting good agriculture,” Steen said. “While this is a national campaign in terms of the range of breweries involved and the audience we’re trying to connect with, it’s very much a local initiative in terms of the very real impacts we expect and hope to see.”

Each brewery picks its own style to make, based on what sustainable ingredients they choose to use and what beer they know their fans will want. They also receive a unique, eye-catching label, created by Earth To Beer and designed to align with individual brewery’s branding while employing a common Earth to Beer layout supporting the movement’s overall look and feel.

The project also offers scholarships — funded by Earth To Beer sponsor Arryved — to BIPOC-owned and newly opened breweries to cover costs.

“Because beer is an agricultural product, I’ve been inspired by the relationship between conservation and craft beer for years,” Steen said. “It just feels like a really organic pathway to make some real change and work with a lot of people who often have the passion to make more sustainable choices but need help establishing a jumping off point.”

Cheers to the project and to Eric. Start looking for Earth To Beer cans soon, and get a full list of participating breweries and sponsors at earthtobeer.com.

Mayfly buzzing at 5 years old

Ryan Born opened Mayfly Taproom & Bottle Shop nearly a year to the day before COVID-19 shut the city down, making its first year — always tough for a new business — even harder.

“Pivot after pivot, the roller coaster ride is real,” Born says. “My original manager Morgan talked about it not being the kind of roller coaster you ride at a big theme park, but the kind at a state fair that they just assembled and is being operated by some 17-year-old kid who got just a few hours of training. It feels like it might all come crumbling down any minute.”

Well said, Ryan and Morgan, but the crew at the excellent North Portland beer bar has made it to five years, and they’re ready to party for three days this weekend, from Friday through Sunday.

“We made it to 5 thanks to our ridiculously amazing community,” Born says. Here are all the details:

Friday: The day will feature “our friends Taylor and Kailin from Steward’s Valley Farm,” Born says. “They are amazing folks with a great little family farm in Oregon City.” The first feature will be a special one-off keg of Babi from Living Häus Beer Co., a Czech-style black lager that is easy drinking and refreshing with just a touch of roast character and a toasty malt bill. It’s been infused with a Steward’s Valley roasted coffee from Guji, Ethiopia. The second feature will be part of Little Brother PDX’s pop-up menu, featuring some overwintered kale as well as dried beans and chilies from last year’s harvest. Their full menu consists of their “Looper Burger,” house bratwurst, braised kale and beans, and banana bread with chocolate chips and hazelnuts.
Saturday: Champs Burgers will be debuting a new burger grind made from 50-day dry-aged NY strips, Drag Bingo with Peachy Springs, and Yovu Beer from Nate Yovu, a North Portlander who brewed up a special batch of what he’s calling a “White Lager” — a sort of Cold IPA/Hazy hybrid. It’s called Ghostman and clocks in at 5%.
Sunday: This is Mayfly’s fifth year partnering with Yoga+Beer, so what better way to start its sixth year with a morning practice. Tickets available here. Machetes.PDX makes psychedelic looking marbled “quesadillas.” This Mexico City street food is a long tortilla (shaped like a machete blade) that you can fill with up to four guisados (braised or stewed meats, vegetables, etc).

“The road to 5 hasn’t been easy,” Born says, “but treating Mayfly (and our plaza) as a community space to host pop-ups, book clubs, makers markets and many other events has allowed us to support so many additional small/tiny businesses in our community, and the relationships that have been formed have helped us get to where we are today.

“We look forward to hosting many more of these events and continuing to bring people together over a good pint, and a great plate of food,” he says.

Noon-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday, noon-9 p.m. Sunday. 8350 N. Fenwick Ave.

Best of Craft Beer Awards held

The Best of Craft Beer Awards were just held in Redmond, and the competition, billed as “one of America’s fastest growing beer awards,” featured 389 breweries that submitted almost 2,000 entries in 55 categories. Over 100 judges sampled the offerings over three days, then awarded 169 gold, silver, and bronze medals to 123 breweries located around the world. The highlights:

2024 Large-Sized Brewery of the Year: Breakside Brewery & Taproom of Milwaukie
2024 Medium-Sized Brewery of the Year: Best Day Brewing of Sausalito, California
2024 Small-size Brewery of the Year: McMenamins Old Saint Francis School of Bend

Get all the results here.

Sports Bra snub not appreciated

My colleague Lizzy Acker is, like me, a fan of The Sports Bra, the women’s sports themed bar on Northeast Broadway. So Lizzy, a trending and arts reporter, was not pleased this week when a list of the country’s best sports bars came out and listed one particular Portland sports bar but not another particular sports bar. Read her entertaining take here to learn more.

Beer of the Week

Bier Wulf Bavarian IPA by Double Mountain Brewery & CideryCourtesy of Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery

Bier Wulf Bavarian IPA, Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery: The Hood River brewery describes its newest seasonal release as a “testament to the Bavarian IPA style but with a twist. It unifies the earthy tones of German hops with the vibrant citrus notes of American counterparts. The German malts provide a complementary foundation, allowing the hops to take center stage. While the use of Hygge yeast lends a clean ferment with light fruit esters, resulting in a dry finish and a pleasantly bready mouthfeel.” Brewery notes: “Notes of ripe citrus, grapefruit pith, and spicy evergreen howling across the palate. The appearance of Bier Wulf is akin to “Sunshine in Brugge,” while its aroma evokes images of wildflowers, bright citrus, and sticky fruit. With a medium bitterness on the tongue and a dry, crisp finish complemented by hints of pineapple, orange, lemon, and pine, Bier Wulf promises an exploration of all of your inner wolf senses.” Bier Wulf also comes with an accompanying Spotify playlist curated by the brewers — scan the code on the bottle with Spotify to access the playlist. Bier Wulf now available for purchase in 500ml refillable bottles and on tap at all Double Mountain locations and in retail throughout the Northwest.

What to do, what to do?

Upright Brewing 15th anniversary: I’ll be writing more in depth on this soon, but mark the date on Saturday, April 6, when Upright will throw down to celebrate 15 trips around the sun. Founder and head brewer Alex Ganum hosts the bash at the brewery’s main location, 240 N. Broadway, with collabs and a new Upright release. This party, from 1-9 p.m., is sure to draw the who’s who among the Portland brewing community to celebrate this cherished brewery. See you there.

Tualatin Valley’s Tap Season: Launched by Explore Tualatin Valley, the destination marketing organization that markets Tualatin Valley as a travel destination, Tap Season is a promotion for beer and cider lovers that includes exclusive event and specials, as well as the re-launch of the successful Tualatin Valley Ale Trail Mobile Passport — a digital passport where beer connoisseurs will earn points for prizes by checking in to any of the 37 participating producers, including Breakside, Ancestry, Bull Run Cider, Cooper Mountain, Golden Valley and Portland Cider.

Events include:

Alpaca Happy Hour 1: Noon-3 p.m., Hillsboro Downtown Station, 320 S.E. Baseline St., Hillsboro. Come to the food carts at Hillsboro Downtown Station and snap a pic with the alpacas, enjoy happy hour specials on some of your favorite Tualatin Valley beers and ciders, and hang out with the Tap Season Street Team, which will be handing out free swag)
Alpaca Happy Hour 2: 4-6 p.m., Stickmen Brewing’s Tualatin Beer Hall, 19475 S.W. 118th Ave., Suite 1, Tualatin. The Beer Hall is also hosting an alpaca happy hour. Meet the alpacas while you enjoy happy hour specials on some of your favorite Tualatin Valley beers and ciders. The Tap Season Street Team will hand out free Tap Season swag again.

Hood River Hard-Pressed Cider Fest: Now in its ninth year, this annual event, held this year on April 27, invites seasoned and novice cider enthusiasts to sample ciders from Columbia River Gorge and Pacific Northwest hard cidermakers. It offers over 60 ciders on tap from more than 30 cideries. Held at the Port of Hood River Event Site, this year the event expands its footprint to provide beachfront access to the Columbia River and the option for attendees to bring their own glass, contributing to what organizers call an “immersive and sustainable Hood River experience.” Beyond cider sampling, the daylong event boasts artisan food, art vendors, music and a children’s play area. For more information or tickets, visit hoodriverciderfest.com. For more information on Hood River, or to book a stay at one of Hood River’s lodging options visit visithoodriver.com/stay.

New Releases of Note

A man holds bottles of beer — Paloma Sour, Migration BrewingColby Schlicker

Paloma Sour, Migration Brewing: This beer, released for the second time on Wednesday, won the Experimental Beers category at the Best of Craft Beer Awards. This gently tart, golden soured ale was fermented before being inoculated with Migration’s house lactobacillus culture, then was aged in Reposado Tequila barrels before being blended with ample amounts of grapefruit puree, lime juice and zest. A dusting of Hawaiian sea salt was added to round out this Paloma-style cocktail sour. Brewery notes: “Hints of oak complement delicate tequila and citrus notes, while gentle acidity and light salinity combine for a complex refreshing beer that resonates with beer and cocktail drinkers alike.”

Farm-to-Market Hazy Imperial IPA, Laurelwood Brewing and Zupan’s Markets: The 28th installment in Zupan’s Farm-to-Market beer series, which began in 2015, is this hazy double IPA with the Northeast Portland brewery — the second between the two. Brewery notes: “Smooth, resiny grapefruit flavor with a tropical, dank citrus aroma, set against a backdrop of rosy straw-orange haze and a light yellow-orange tan head. The beer is crafted from a blend of premium malts and a diverse selection of hops for a complex yet balanced profile.” Available exclusively at Zupan’s Markets in 16-ounce cans.

Fresh Squeezed Non-Alcoholic IPA, Deschutes Brewery: The Bend and Portland brewery’s latest release is a nonalcoholic version of its No. 1 selling IPA, Fresh Squeezed. Deschutes has invested heavily in NA over the past five years, and NA Fresh Squeezed is crafted in-house through a partnership with Sustainable Beverage Technologies and uses the company’s patented BrewVo® technology in combination with Deschutes’ proprietary brewing methods. Brewery notes: “Brilliantly balanced and features the same Citra and Mosaic hops as the original, delivering refreshing notes of bright citrus and tropical fruit, with less than 0.5% ABV.” Fresh Squeezed NA comes on the heels of Deschutes’ first packaged non-alcoholic beer, Black Butte Non-Alcoholic, which quickly became the brewery’s highest rate-of-sale six-pack. Both are available nationwide at select retailers, bars, and restaurants. Use the “beer finder” to find the closest retailer or here to purchase the new non-alcoholic options online.

McMenamins Hard Seltzer – Lemon Raspberry, McMenamins West Linn Brewery: The brewery group is the latest to enter the “seltzer space,” as industry lingo calls it. McMenamins says it plans to have different flavors of its Hard Seltzer in the future, but as a tribute to its well-known Ruby Ale, Raspberry is the first. Brewery notes: “Light and refreshing, this low calorie sipper delivers delicious flavors of raspberry and a hint of lemon for a crisp and effervescent experience.” Now available on draft at McMenamins locations and in cans starting Friday, March 29.

— Andre Meunier has been writing about Northwest beer and breweries since 2016; reach him at 503-221-8488 or ameunier@oregonian.com, and sign up for his weekly newsletter, Oregon Brews and News. Instagram: @oregonianbeerguy

Read the full story here.

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Related News

What's Killing These Oak Trees in the Midwest? Conservationists Believe Drifting Herbicides Are to Blame

When Illinois landowners noticed tree deaths and diseases on their properties ramp up in 2017, they suspected industrial agriculture. A survey found herbicides in 90 percent of tree tissues

What’s Killing These Oak Trees in the Midwest? Conservationists Believe Drifting Herbicides Are to Blame When Illinois landowners noticed tree deaths and diseases on their properties ramp up in 2017, they suspected industrial agriculture. A survey found herbicides in 90 percent of tree tissues Christian Elliott, bioGraphic December 9, 2025 4:04 p.m. A dead tree stands with its bare, white trunk and branches in contrast to the greenery around it. Prairie Rivers Network Key takeaways: Herbicides and a blight of native oaks After the herbicide dicamba exploded in popularity among industrial farmers in 2017, some Illinois residents noticed curled and discolored leaves on native oak trees. Scientists and conservationists are gathering data in hopes of advocating for restrictions on herbicide use, such as tighter regulations on spraying in high winds. The symptoms were strange. They were the same across multiple oak species—white, swamp white, black, red, post, shingle, chinquapin, blackjack and pin. Leaves thickened, elongated and contorted into grotesque shapes—cupping, puckering, curling and twisting until it was hard to tell one species from another. Veins bleached yellow, losing chlorophyll. Soon after, some of the trees died. Seth Swoboda first noticed the sickness in the spring of 2017 on his 40-acre property in Nashville, Illinois, smack in the middle of some of the United States’ most productive farmland. He knocked on the door of his neighbor Martin Kemper and asked if there were some new oak disease going around. Kemper didn’t think so, but he had an idea. A retired biologist from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Kemper had noticed other oaks and native trees in the area showing similar signs of injury. He suspected a culprit that’s risky to blame in a state economically and politically steeped in agriculture: herbicide drift, or the movement of weed-killing chemicals onto nontarget plants. Swoboda’s property, a cattle pasture on oak-hickory woodland, is surrounded on four sides by industrial-scale corn and soybean operations. On a hot summer evening after a neighbor has sprayed their fields, you can smell the herbicide in the air. Heat, a stiff breeze or a temperature inversion can hoist the molecules into the atmosphere and carry them far away. In one study, researchers found that an herbicide had been carried in the clouds for over a hundred miles before falling as rain. Seth Swoboda first noticed signs of herbicide damage on the native oaks on his property in Nashville, Illinois, in 2017. Since then, he’s lost 11 trees. Christian Elliott Herbicide drift is internationally recognized as a problem for native species and closely tracked across Europe. Yet no government agency in Illinois or the surrounding states was measuring its impacts, even on the few patches of native forest left there, says Kim Erndt-Pitcher, an ecotoxicologist and director of ecological health for the Illinois-based nonprofit Prairie Rivers Network. “We met with agencies, and it was just really hard to convince folks that this is an issue,” Erndt-Pitcher adds. “No one was looking at the frequency of symptoms or the severity of symptoms or the distribution across the state.” So, Prairie Rivers Network started a monitoring program with a shoestring budget and a handful of volunteers. One of them was Kemper. Over the past seven years, Kemper and Erndt-Pitcher have driven to Swoboda’s farm and 279 other sites on public and private land to visually assess trees and collect tissue samples. Swoboda’s samples wait alongside Dilly Bars in his farmhouse freezer until Prairie Rivers Network can afford to ship them to a lab for chemical analysis, at a cost of around $900 per sample. Twenty of 21 samples analyzed from Swoboda’s land have come back positive for 2,4-D, dicamba, atrazine or other herbicides, and 53 plant species have shown herbicide exposure symptoms. Swoboda has filed formal misuse complaints to the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) each year to no avail. To prove wrongdoing, he needs evidence that’s nearly impossible get: a specific farmer to blame, a time and date for the application, and a wind speed or temperature above the legal limits specified on the product’s label at the time of spraying. In 2024, Prairie Rivers Network published the results of its monitoring program and revealed that 99.6 percent of test sites showed drift symptoms and 90 percent of tree tissue samples contained herbicides. A separate survey of 78,000 plants from nearly 200 sites, published the same year by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, found similar results, and nonprofits and land managers in other Midwestern states are likewise recording increasing herbicide damage. Scientists worry about potential cascading effects on insects, birds, reptiles and mammals, while locals like Swoboda are also concerned about human health impacts. At least 85 pesticides—an umbrella term for any chemical used to kill something, including insecticides, herbicides and fungicides—that are routinely used in the U.S. have been banned or are being phased out in other countries due to potential health risks, including links to cancers and other diseases. Kim Erndt-Pitcher, an ecotoxicologist and director of ecological health for the Illinois-based nonprofit Prairie Rivers Network, visits more than 275 sites each year to collect tissue samples and visually assess trees for signs of herbicide drift. Prairie Rivers Network “This is people’s personal property rights. This is their right to a healthful, clean environment, and it’s being violated on a regular basis, year after year,” says Erndt-Pitcher. “[The agrochemical] industry is incredibly powerful and influential. And I think if more people knew what all this meant—what we’re risking by inaction—they would be really mad. Like, really, really mad.” Today, on the Fourth of July holiday, Erndt-Pitcher, Kemper and I follow Swoboda around his property. He’s spent the morning cutting bush honeysuckle and multiflora rose—invasives encroaching on his oaks. The afternoon sun beats down through a much-thinned canopy onto a yard that, for generations, was so shaded the Swobodas didn’t have to mow. He points out the places where oaks used to be; out of 104 mature native hardwoods, he’s lost 11 since 2017, their trunks and branches now a pile of firewood on the gravel driveway. He plants new oaks, but they show the same signs of damage. Kemper bends down and beckons me over to look at the garden phlox planted next to the patio where Swoboda’s kids play. The plant’s leaves are cupped, too. Oak trees, native to Illinois and much of the U.S., offer habitat for insects, fungi, birds and mammals. Hank Erdmann / Alamy Stock Photo For the past 1,000 years, much of the Midwest looked something like Swoboda’s property. The region was a mosaic of mesic oak-hickory woodland, tallgrass prairie and seasonal wetlands maintained by rejuvenating fires set by Indigenous peoples. In less than a century, nearly all of these native ecosystems were plowed. Rich prairie soil was converted to monocultures of corn and soy sustained by government subsidies, fertilizers and over 100 million pounds of synthetic pesticides each year. The grain produced by these crop factories mainly feeds livestock and fills fuel tanks. Before World War II, farmers largely relied on mechanical tilling to control weeds. With the birth of the pesticide industry, though, they started using weed killers like glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s signature Roundup herbicide. Farmers initially sprayed the soil before planting, to avoid damaging their crops, but in the 1990s Monsanto debuted Roundup Ready corn and soybeans, genetically engineered to tolerate the herbicide. Soon, larger tractors with 100-foot boom arms were spraying chemicals faster and in greater volume, directly onto crops for the first time. Between 1990 and 2022, pesticide use per cropland area increased by 94 percent worldwide. But by the early 2010s, weeds that had evolved resistance to glyphosate had become widespread. Farmers then pivoted to a different class of herbicides known as plant growth regulators. One was 2,4-D, one of several ingredients in Agent Orange, the infamous chemical weapon of the Vietnam War. Another, dicamba, exploded in popularity in 2017, a year after dicamba-resistant soybeans hit the market. Dicamba is particularly volatile—days after it’s sprayed, molecules can turn into a gas and drift away, particularly in the heat of summer. Plants can “breathe in” the toxicant through pores on the underside of their leaves. The year that dicamba-resistant soybeans ramped up was the same year that Swoboda noticed oaks on his property starting to wither and die. The IDOA was simultaneously inundated with reports from farmers who hadn’t planted dicamba-resistant soybeans and whose crops were dying from herbicide drift. Tensions between farmers who planted dicamba-resistant soybeans and those who did not were so fraught that one farmworker in Arkansas shot and killed a neighbor who confronted him about drift. After farmers began planting soybeans engineered with a resistance to the herbicide dicamba in 2016 and 2017, allegations of pesticide misuse in Illinois jumped. Data by Illinois Department of Agriculture, design by Mark Garrison “Every extension weed scientist throughout the Midwest knew what was going to happen,” says Aaron Hager, a weed scientist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “We knew there was going to be an effect on trees. There’s no way there couldn’t have been an effect on trees.” The fields around Swoboda’s property have been actively farmed since before he was born 45 years ago. Only the chemicals have changed. “By the time I realized, it was too late, really,” he says. Crops are often engineered to resist multiple herbicides. Native species aren’t. The oaks, Swoboda says, “went fast.” A road near agricultural fields Charles O. Cecil / Alamy Stock Photo Since they took root some 50 million years ago, oaks have played an outsize role in North American ecosystems. The continent’s 250 or so species of oaks together make up more tree biomass than any other woody genus, and they shelter and feed a breadth of insects, fungi, birds and mammals. They grow slowly, adding just millimeters of girth each year, and what they lack in speed they make up for in strength and bulk. Some species can reach seven feet in diameter; others reach 100 feet into the sky. And while many native trees of North America have succumbed to introduced pests and diseases in the past century, oaks seemed largely impervious, their gnarled limbs often stretching so high overhead that early signs of damage are hard to notice. Once you learn to see the signs, though, you notice the destruction everywhere—even far from the nearest farmland. Leaving Swoboda behind, Kemper and Erndt-Pitcher take me on a whirlwind tour of state parks and nature preserves. At Eldon Hazlet State Recreation Area, Kemper stops so frequently to point out native trees with signs of herbicide damage—sweet gum, American elm, tulip poplar, shagbark hickory, persimmon, redbud, river birch, box elder—that Erndt-Pitcher begins to feel carsick in the back seat. She jokes he needs a pointer on a yardstick for Christmas and asks him to please, please turn on the air conditioning. In 2024, Prairie Rivers Network published the results of its monitoring program and revealed that 99.6 percent of test sites showed drift symptoms and 90 percent of tree tissue samples contained herbicides, resulting in cupped, puckered leaves, like those of this redbud. Prairie Rivers Network Even if herbicide effects aren’t directly lethal, some researchers believe that curled leaves, like these on a post oak, likely won’t photosynthesize as efficiently as regular leaves. Prairie Rivers Network In the park campground, at capacity on this holiday weekend, hundreds of RVs and tents sit in the dappled light of a sparse canopy. Some oaks sprout leaves from their branches and trunks in a last-ditch effort to photosynthesize, but many limbs are already dead. It’s easy to imagine this place in another few decades with no trees—or campers—left. “Lots of us that work on this issue, we’ll say we used to love the summer and the spring, and now it’s become a dreaded time of year, because it’s just this persistent series of wounds all around us that we have to observe,” says Erndt-Pitcher. Later, at Washington County State Recreation Area, we stop at a spit of land overlooking a lake. Kemper has come to this spot since he was 10 years old to watch Carolina chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, tufted titmice, blue jays, woodpeckers and the occasional barred owl, along with other migratory and resident bird species. “This was a fantastic white oak-canopied area … and now it’s a disaster,” says Kemper. “And it’s scary, because what I see is a progression that’s slowly getting worse. We’re seeing a gradual decline in the health of the forest, and the chances that this doesn’t have ecological cascades, in my estimation, are zero.” Erndt-Pitcher points out that the state is legally obligated to protect designated nature preserves. But while years of environmental activism have left many people aware of how pesticide overuse harms pollinating insects and can contribute to cancers, Parkinson’s disease, birth defects and endocrine problems in humans, the dangers to native plants have made fewer headlines. In the 1970s, the state passed the Illinois Pesticide Act to protect people and the environment from pesticide misuse. But Erndt-Pitcher argues the act doesn’t do enough to address drift. And it’s enforced by the IDOA, which she sees as a conflict of interest. (Weeds can cut corn yields by 50 percent or more, and it’s in the state’s interest to maximize farm production.) The state Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defers to the IDOA on pesticides, while the federal EPA—which regulates 16,800 different pesticides—relies largely on studies conducted by agrochemical companies for its safety assessments. Agrochemical companies also spend tens of millions of dollars annually to lobby lawmakers and reportedly employ many former federal EPA employees. This year, Prairie Rivers Network proposed bills in the state legislature to ban a particularly volatile formulation of 2,4-D and to require herbicide applicators to notify nearby schools and parks before spraying. Neither passed. “We’ve been calling attention to this for over ten years,” says Kemper. “And those regulatory agencies that have this responsibility have not, to our knowledge, done enough to have an impact on the issue.” Martin Kemper, a retired biologist from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, volunteers with Prairie Rivers Network to monitor trees for signs of herbicide drift. Prairie Rivers Network In response, the IDOA says it operates “a training, certification and licensing program to ensure pesticide applicators are properly licensed and knowledgeable regarding pesticide use,” and that all “complaints of pesticide misuse are investigated by plant and pesticide specialists.” The IDOA also has the authority to implement state-specific regulations for individual pesticides like dicamba and supports a nonprofit, voluntary mapping registry. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources did not respond to a request to comment. In one small win for activists, a U.S. District Court in Arizona in 2024 overturned the federal approval of dicamba, essentially banning it across the U.S. for the 2025 growing season. But overall herbicide use is still increasing, and the Trump administration is considering reversing the ban on dicamba, citing confidence that if users apply the product as directed, it will “not pose an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment.” Additionally, the federal EPA’s scientific research arm, which serves as its foundation for assessing toxic chemicals, including herbicides, will likely be disbanded. To Erndt-Pitcher, that puts the onus on states. Yet while the IDOA and lawmakers have done little to solve the problem in activists’ eyes, Prairie Rivers Network’s small, volunteer-staffed monitoring program has helped convince other state agencies and universities to study the problem. Now, peer-reviewed lab experiments and field studies are beginning to show what landowners like Swoboda have been observing for years. A forest borders agricultural land in Illinois Prairie Rivers Network One of the scientists conducting lab experiments is wildlife ecologist T.J. Benson, whom I meet in a small room in the Illinois Natural History Survey lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Opening a white cabinet, he shows me tiny moth larvae wriggling in dozens of clear plastic deli containers. They’re black cutworms, a common native caterpillar and crop pest. Each container has a little flan-like cube of caterpillar food spiked with one of several pesticides. Benson buys the eggs and food from a company that presumably also sells to pesticide producers for insecticide testing. “The Insects You Need, When You Need Them,” reads the empty cardboard box. But Benson’s goals are different; he specializes in birds. He started this experiment after tracking declining eastern whippoorwill populations, which generally thrive when caterpillars are abundant. “Birds migrating through right now are very dependent on caterpillars that are feeding on these really young [tree] leaves,” he says. Yet when the federal EPA evaluates new herbicides for impacts to insects, it typically only considers non-native honeybees, Benson says—which don’t eat leaves. And the only birds considered in the agency’s models are usually mallard ducks and quails, which are not exclusively insectivorous and are larger-bodied, which could make them less susceptible than smaller species. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency evaluates new herbicides for impacts to insects, it typically only considers non-native honeybees rather than bumblebees, says wildlife ecologist T.J. Benson. Prairie Rivers Network Benson regularly weighs individual caterpillars to study the effects of pesticides on their growth. He and his graduate student Grant Witynski have found that caterpillars exposed to field-realistic concentrations of atrazine and 2,4-D have up to a 26 percent lower probability of surviving to adulthood than controls. If caterpillars in the wild are regularly eating leaves contaminated by these herbicides, it could be harming whippoorwills and other insectivorous birds, as well as species that depend on oaks for habitat. Activists hope that such science will eventually give them the evidence they need to convince lawmakers and regulators to take action. For now, though, landowners who complain to state agriculture employees are often told that they can’t prove the visual symptoms they’re seeing on leaves are caused by herbicides in the plant tissues and not something else. And despite anecdotal evidence of tree death across the Midwest, controlled studies haven’t yet proved that the long-term effects of herbicides are deadly. Hager, the weed scientist, is among the skeptics. He knew that changes to herbicide use would result in greater drift, and that once people started noticing plant growth regulator symptoms in trees back in 2017, they’d eventually start looking for pesticides in leaf samples. But based on the available data, he doesn’t buy that drift is as big a crisis as some claim for the long-term health of trees, or that visual symptoms necessarily correlate with widespread tree mortality. “We could have pulled tree leaf samples any year in the last 50 years and found pesticides,” he tells me. “And we still have trees on the landscape.” Animals large and small depend on the few remaining native plants in a region dominated by industrial-scale agriculture. Prairie Rivers Network And while some advocates believe that the only answer is banning certain herbicides or even radically changing the way land is farmed in this part of the world, Hager and others argue that a statewide ban on any individual herbicide would put Illinois farmers at a competitive disadvantage. He’d like to see an amendment to the Illinois Pesticide Act that bans spraying when winds exceed a certain speed. But the state would need more staff and money to enforce a rule like that. At the Illinois Natural History Survey complex, Benson and botanist Ed Price lead me to a greenhouse. Inside, little potted oaks and redbuds sit in lines on tables. Some have been sprayed with herbicides multiple times in a year, others only once or not at all. So far, plants seem to be most vulnerable when they’re young, just as their buds swell and their leaves unfurl. Price and Benson are looking for residual damage—whether leaves regrow “wonky” in subsequent years after a lab-simulated drift event. The University of Missouri is running a similar study on ornamental and fruit trees. Price shows me a curled oak leaf. Even if herbicide effects aren’t directly lethal, he explains, curled leaves likely won’t photosynthesize as efficiently as regular leaves do. Trees face multiple stressors—higher temperatures, shifting seasons, more rainfall, drought, competition from invasive species. Herbicides are one of the few compounding stressors we have any immediate control over. And they could push stressed trees over the edge. As we walk back to the lab, Benson smells the medicinal odor of 2,4-D in the air. The facilities crew has just sprayed the landscaping for weeds. Back in Nashville, Illinois, American flags and firework stands line the streets for the Fourth of July holiday. Driving through, I notice curled, stunted leaves on redbuds in front of old Victorian homes decorated with red-white-and-blue bunting. Kemper is right—once you’ve learned what to look for, you see herbicide injury everywhere. Down the road from Swoboda’s farm, Kemper pulls his Ford Ranger pickup into a pasture. Just ahead is an imposing tree with a 17-foot circumference. Known as the Harper post oak, it is the largest post oak in the state. Using binoculars from my perch in the truck bed, I look up at the thickened, cupped leaves. The post oak has contained at least six types of herbicides from an average of three exposures per year since Prairie Rivers Network began sampling it. With a 17-foot circumference, the Harper post oak is the largest tree of its species in the state of Illinois. Prairie Rivers Network Larry Harper, the property owner, pulls up in a golf cart, sweating through his American flag T-shirt. He tells us that he had to cut down the last pin oak on his property this spring. With each year, as his only remaining post oak declines further, Harper gets increasingly mad. A state employee comes to his property regularly, responding to reports that go nowhere. “I just don’t know when it’s going to register,” he says. “Chestnut trees have been gone for a while. … Elm trees are gone. You’re going to lose all the oaks before you decide, ‘Hey, maybe we’ve got a problem?’” For now, though, the post oak still stands—gnarled, centuries old, towering over a pond on a pasture hilltop. We pause in its shade, bearing witness to yet another dying tree while everyone else in the county seems to be celebrating the Fourth of July with barbecues, fireworks and beer. Everyone, that is, except the farmworkers, who are out spraying pesticides even on the holiday, releasing a fine mist onto rows of corn and soy that stretch to the horizon. This story originally appeared in bioGraphic, an independent magazine about nature and regeneration powered by the California Academy of Sciences. Get the latest Science stories in your inbox.

Agriculture

Conservation

Animals

To Protect Underage Farmworkers, California Expands Oversight of Field Conditions

State agencies to join forces to crack down on child labor violations after Capital & Main found enforcement breakdowns. The post To Protect Underage Farmworkers, California Expands Oversight of Field Conditions appeared first on .

California officials said they are launching new enforcement actions to protect underage farmworkers, including enhanced coordination among two state agencies charged with inspecting work conditions in the fields. The actions follow an investigation by Capital & Main, produced in partnership with the Los Angeles Times and McGraw Center for Business Journalism, which found that the state is failing to protect underage farmworkers who labor in harsh and dangerous circumstances. Thousands of children and teenagers work in California fields to provide Americans with fresh fruit and vegetables. While laborers as young as 12 can legally work in agriculture, many described being exposed to toxic pesticides, dangerous heat and other hazards. The new enforcement efforts will be overseen by the state Labor and Workforce Development Agency, which directs key agencies charged with regulating child labor and worksite safety laws, officials said. Officials said the state’s Bureau of Field Enforcement, which regulates child labor and wage and hour laws, is developing plans to conduct joint operations with an existing agricultural enforcement task force assigned to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA. Inspectors from the two agencies typically perform field operations separately and enforce different laws. Working together will enable the state to “increase its presence in the fields and its capacity to identify violations,” according to Crystal Young, deputy secretary of communications for the Labor and Workforce Development Agency. The agency is also overseeing an effort to share data among enforcement teams from departments such as the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, Department of Industrial Relations and Employment Development Department. Sharing information, Young said, will “further bolster our ability to identify potential violations for investigation.” In a written statement, she said that state officials have been actively enforcing child labor rules across all industries, assessing 571 violations that resulted in “millions of dollars in penalties” from 2017 through 2024. But records obtained under the California Public Records Act for that period show that only a small number of child labor enforcement actions involved the agricultural industry. Just 27 citations were issued for child labor violations to the thousands of agricultural employers across California, the records show. The fines totaled $36,000, but the state collected only $2,814. Jose, seen at 13, picks strawberries in the Salinas Valley.Photo: Barbara Davidson. Cal/OSHA enforcement records show that the agency failed to investigate most complaints about alleged violations of California’s outdoor heat law and reports of outdoor heat injuries, as well as an overall 74% drop in citations issued to agricultural employers for all infractions. The heat law requires employers to provide safety training as well as cool water and shade when temperatures exceed 80 degrees. Worker advocates lauded the plans for increased enforcement as steps in the right direction. But they added that any long-term solutions need to address issues such as low wages and poverty, both of which drive minors to work in the fields to help their families pay rent and put food on the table. “Being able to support farmworker families through a living wage, you know, is one of the ways that we can really address this issue,” said Erica Diaz-Cervantes, 25, a former underage strawberry picker who is now a senior policy advocate for the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy. With higher wages, “Children won’t have to feel this responsibility to help their family financially by working in the fields,” she added. Other efforts are underway, nationally and in California, to address issues involving underage farmworkers. U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Palm Desert) recently reintroduced legislation that would change the federal minimum age for farmworkers from 12 to 14 for most farm jobs, as well as strengthen enforcement and improve nationwide data collection on injuries and fatalities. California requires minors to be 14 years old to work in most instances but allows children as young as 12 to labor up to 40 hours a week in agriculture when school is not in session. Assemblymember Damon Connolly (D-San Rafael) said in a statement that he ordered an audit earlier this year to review issues such as inconsistent enforcement in California’s pesticide regulation process, which is split between local and state agencies. The recently published investigation analyzed more than 40,000 state pesticide enforcement records from 2018 through early 2024 and found piecemeal regulation at the county level. The records showed that businesses operating in multiple counties were not fined for hundreds of pesticide violations — many of them involving worker safety. More than two dozen underage farmworkers and their parents said in interviews that they worked in fields that smelled of chemicals and described feeling sick and dizzy or suffering from skin irritations. The workers and their parents are from families with mixed-immigration status, and Capital & Main has used only their first names. The audit, expected to be completed next year, “will help us determine whether the need is for additional resources, statutory and regulatory changes, or more vigorous enforcement of existing laws,” said Connolly, who chairs the Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials. Strawberry pickers, like these in the Salinas Valley, squat and bend over for hours on a summer day. Photo: Barbara Davidson. Connolly and Assemblymember Liz Ortega (D-San Leandro) said that the Department of Pesticide Regulation, which oversees pesticide safety statewide, should develop educational materials for underage workers to inform them about pesticides and how to report problems. Such information has been created for high school students to inform them of general worker rights. “That’s one tool that we can use in agriculture to keep these children safe,” said Ortega, who chairs the Labor and Employment Committee and has held hearings on workplace safety in the fields. A spokesperson for the Department of Pesticide Regulation said the agency has pesticide safety information in multiple languages on its website for all farmworkers but has not created materials for minors. Some of the information is posted in many of the fields. Underage farmworkers said that such information is badly needed. “Many of us don’t know what pesticides are, how they can harm our health or … what we’re supposed to do to safely work around them,” said Lorena, 17, who has been harvesting strawberries since she was 11 years old in the Santa Maria Valley. She described being exposed to chemicals that caused her eyes to burn and her skin to break out in rashes. “Having all that information in one simple flyer,” she said, “could make it much easier for us to be able to recognize the dangers and know how to protect ourselves. Robert J. Lopez is an independent journalist and fellow with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism. This story was produced in partnership with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York and was supported by the California Health Care Foundation and the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Copyright 2025 Capital & Main. Read part one of Capital & Main’s investigation into the health and safety of child farmworkers in California. Lea en español. Read part two: Child farmworkers exposed to toxic pesticides amid lax enforcement. Lea en español.

Agriculture

Business

Chemicals

The environmental costs of corn: should the US change how it grows its dominant crop?

Amid concerns over greenhouse gas emissions, the Trump administration has abolished climate-friendly farming incentivesThis article was produced in partnership with FloodlightFor decades, corn has reigned over American agriculture. It sprawls across 90m acres – about the size of Montana – and goes into everything from livestock feed and processed foods to the ethanol blended into most of the nation’s gasoline. Continue reading...

This article was produced in partnership with FloodlightFor decades, corn has reigned over American agriculture. It sprawls across 90m acres – about the size of Montana – and goes into everything from livestock feed and processed foods to the ethanol blended into most of the nation’s gasoline.But a growing body of research reveals that the US’s obsession with corn has a steep price: the fertilizer used to grow it is warming the planet and contaminating water.Corn is essential to the rural economy and to the world’s food supply, and researchers say the problem isn’t the corn itself. It’s how we grow it.Corn farmers rely on heavy fertilizer use to sustain today’s high yields. And when the nitrogen in the fertilizer breaks down in the soil, it releases nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Producing nitrogen fertilizer also emits large amounts of carbon dioxide, adding to its climate footprint.The corn and ethanol industries insist that rapid growth in ethanol – which now consumes 40% of the US corn crop – is a net environmental benefit, and they strongly dispute research suggesting otherwise.Industry is also pushing for ethanol-based jet fuel and higher-ethanol gasoline blends as growth in electric vehicles threatens long-term gasoline sales.Agriculture accounts for more than 10% of US greenhouse gas emissions, and corn uses more than two-thirds of all nitrogen fertilizer nationwide – making it the leading driver of agricultural nitrous oxide emissions, studies show.Since 2000, US corn production has surged almost 50%, further adding to the crop’s climate impact.The environmental costs of corn rarely make headlines or factor into political debates. Much of the dynamic traces back to federal policy – and to the powerful corn and ethanol lobby that helped shape it.The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), passed in the mid-2000s, required that gasoline be blended with ethanol, a biofuel that in the United States comes almost entirely from corn. That mandate drove up demand and prices for corn, spurring farmers to plant more of it.Many plant corn year after year on the same land. The practice, called “continuous corn”, demands massive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer and drives especially high nitrous oxide emissions.Corn growing in front of an ethanol refinery in South Dakota. Photograph: Stephen Groves/APAt the same time, federal subsidies make it more lucrative to grow corn than to diversify. Taxpayers have covered more than $50bn in corn insurance premiums over the past 30 years, according to federal data compiled by the Environmental Working Group.Researchers say proven conservation steps – such as planting rows of trees, shrubs and grasses in cornfields – could sharply reduce these emissions. But the Trump administration has eliminated many of the incentives that helped farmers try such practices.Experts say it all raises a larger question: if the US’s most widely planted crop is worsening climate change, shouldn’t we begin growing it in a different way?How corn took over the USIn the late 1990s, the US’s corn farmers were in trouble. Prices had cratered amid a global grain glut and the Asian financial crisis. A 1999 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis said crop prices had hit “rock bottom”.Corn production really took off in the 2000s after federal mandates and incentives helped turn much of the US’s corn crop into ethanol.In 2001, the US Department of Agriculture launched the bioenergy program, which paid ethanol producers to increase their use of farm commodities for fuel. Then the 2002 farm bill created programs supporting ethanol and other renewable energy.Corn growers soon mounted an all-out campaign to persuade Congress to require that gasoline be blended with ethanol, arguing it cut greenhouse gasses, reduced oil dependence and revived rural economies.“I started receiving calls from Capitol Hill saying: ‘Would you have your growers stop calling us? We are with you,’” Jon Doggett, then the industry’s chief lobbyist, said in an article published by the National Corn Growers Association. “I had not seen anything like it before and haven’t seen anything like it since.”In 2005, Congress created the RFS, which requires adding ethanol to gasoline, and expanded it two years later. The amount of corn used for ethanol domestically has more than tripled in the past 20 years.When demand for corn spiked as a result of the RFS, it pushed up prices worldwide, said Tim Searchinger, a researcher at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. The result, Searchinger said, was more land cleared to grow corn. The Global Carbon Project found that nitrous oxide emissions from human activity rose 40% from 1980 to 2020.In the United States, “king corn” became a political force. Since 2010, national corn and ethanol trade groups have spent more than $55m on lobbying and millions more on political donations to Democrats and Republicans alike, according to campaign finance records analyzed by Floodlight.In 2024 alone, those trade groups spent twice as much on lobbying as the National Rifle Association. Now the sectors are pushing for the next big prize: expanding higher-ethanol gasoline blends and positioning ethanol-based jet fuel as aviation’s “low-carbon” future.Research undercuts ethanol’s clean-fuel claimsCorn and ethanol trade groups did not respond to requests for interviews. But they have long promoted corn ethanol as a climate-friendly fuel.The Renewable Fuels Association cites government and university research that finds burning ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 40%-50% compared with gasoline. The ethanol industry says the climate critics have it wrong – and that most of the corn used for fuel comes from better yields and smarter farming, not from plowing up new land. The amount of fertilizer required to produce a bushel of corn has dropped sharply in recent decades, they say.“Ethanol reduces carbon emissions, removing the carbon equivalent of 12 million cars from the road each year,” according to the Renewable Fuels Association.Growth Energy, a major ethanol trade group, said in a written statement to Floodlight that US farmers and biofuel producers are “constantly finding new ways to make their operations more efficient and more environmentally beneficial”, using things like cover crops to reduce their carbon footprint. “Biofuel producers are making investments today that will make their products net-zero or even net negative in the next two decades,” the statement said.Some research tells a different story.A recent Environmental Working Group report finds that the way corn is grown in much of the midwest – with the same fields planted in corn year after year – carries a heavy climate cost.And research in 2022 by agricultural land use expert Tyler Lark and colleagues links the Renewable Fuel Standard to worsening water pollution and increased emissions, concluding the climate impact is “no less than gasoline and likely at least 24% higher”.Lark’s research has been disputed by scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory, Purdue University and the University of Illinois, who published a formal rebuttal arguing the study relied on “questionable assumptions” and faulty modeling – a charge Lark’s team has rejected.One recent study found that solar panels can generate as much energy as corn ethanol on roughly 3% of the land.“It’s just a terrible use of land,” Searchinger, the Princeton researcher, said of ethanol. “And you can’t solve climate change if you’re going to make such terrible use of land.”Nitrogen polluting rural drinking waterThe nitrogen used to grow corn and other crops is also a key source of drinking water pollution, experts say.According to a new report by Clean Wisconsin and the Alliance for the Great Lakes, more than 90% of nitrate contamination in Wisconsin’s groundwater is linked to agricultural sources – mostly synthetic fertilizer and manure.A farm in Pemberton, New Jersey, on 14 October 2025. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty ImagesIn 2022, Tyler Frye and his wife moved into a new home in the rural village of Casco, Wisconsin, about 20 miles (32km) east of Green Bay. Testing found their well water had nitrate levels more than twice the EPA’s safe limit. “We were pretty shocked,” Frye said.He installed a reverse-osmosis system in the basement and still buys bottled water for his wife, who is breastfeeding their daughter, born in July.When he watches manure or fertilizer being spread on nearby fields, he said, one question nags him: “Where does that go?”What cleaner corn could look likeReducing corn’s climate footprint is possible – but the farmers trying to do it are swimming against the policy tide.Recent moves by the Trump administration have stripped out Biden-era incentives for climate-friendly farming practices, which the agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins dismissed as part of the “green new scam”.Research, however, shows that proven conservation practices – including planting trees, shrubs and hedgerows in corn fields – could make a measurable difference.In northern Iowa, Wendy Johnson is planting fruit and nut trees, organic grains, shrubs and other plants that need little or no nitrogen fertilizer on 130 of the 1,200 acres (485 hectares) of corn and soybeans she farms with her father. Across the rest of the farm, they enrich the soil by rotating crops and planting cover crops. They’ve also converted less productive parts of the fields into “prairie strips” – bands of prairie grass that store carbon and require no fertilizer.They were counting on $20,000 a year from the now-cancelled Climate-Smart grant program, but it never came.“It’s hard to take risks on your own,” Johnson said. “That’s where federal support really helps.”In south-east Iowa, sixth-generation farmer Levi Lyle mixes organic and conventional methods across 290 acres. He uses a three-year rotation, extensive cover crops and a technique called roller crimping: flattening rye each spring to create a mulch that suppresses weeds, feeds the soil and reduces fertilizer needs.“The roller crimping of cover crops is a huge, huge opportunity to sequester more carbon, improve soil health, save money on chemicals and still get a similar yield,” Lyle said.Despite mounting research about corn’s climate costs, industry groups are pushing for legislation to pave the way for ethanol-based jet fuel.Researchers warn that producing enough ethanol-based aviation fuel could prompt another 114m acres to be converted to corn, or 20% more corn acres than the US plants for all purposes.“The result,” said University of Iowa professor and natural resources economist Silvia Secchi, “would be essentially to enshrine this dysfunctional system that we created.”Floodlight is a non-profit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action

Agriculture

Climate

Food

A drying Great Salt Lake is spewing toxic dust. It could cost Utah billions

A new report lays out the case for action -- instead of waiting for more data.

Note to readers • This story is made possible through a partnership between The Salt Lake Tribune and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization. The dust blowing from the dry bed of the Great Salt Lake is creating a serious public health threat that policymakers and the scientific community are not taking seriously enough, two environmental nonprofits warn in a recent report. The Great Salt Lake hit a record-low elevation in 2022 and teetered on the brink of ecological collapse. It put millions of migrating birds at risk, along with multi-million-dollar lake-based industries such as brine shrimp harvesting, mineral extraction and tourism. The lake only recovered after a few winters with above-average snowfall, but it sits dangerously close to sinking to another record-breaking low. Around 800 square miles of lakebed sit exposed, baking and eroding into a massive threat to public health. Dust storms large and small have become a regular occurrence on the Wasatch Front, the urban region where most Utahns live. The report from the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and the Utah Rivers Council argues that Utah’s “baby steps” approach to address the dust fall short of what’s needed to avert a long-term public health crisis. Failing to address those concerns, they say, could saddle the state with billions of dollars in cleanup costs. “We should not wait until we have all the data before we act,” said Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, in an interview. “The overall message of this report is that the health hazard so far has been under-analyzed by the scientific community.” After reviewing the report, however, two scientists who regularly study the Great Salt Lake argued the nonprofits’ findings rely on assumptions and not documented evidence. The report warns that while much of the dust discussion and new state-funded dust monitoring network focus on coarse particulates, called PM 10, Utahns should also be concerned about tiny particulates 0.1 microns or smaller called “ultrafines.” The near-invisible pollutants can penetrate a person’s lungs, bloodstream, placenta and brain. The lake’s dust could also carry toxins like heavy metals, pesticides and PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” Moench cautioned, because of the region’s history of mining, agriculture and manufacturing. “Great Salt Lake dust is more toxic than other sources of Great Basin dust,” Moench said. “It’s almost certain that virtually everyone living on the Wasatch Front has contamination of all their critical organs with microscopic pollution particles.” If the lake persists at its record-low elevation of 4,188 feet above sea level, the report found, dust mitigation could cost between $3.4 billion and $11 billion over 20 years depending on the methods used. The nonprofits looked to Owens Lake in California to develop their estimates. Officials there used a variety of methods to control dust blowing from the dried-up lake, like planting vegetation, piping water for shallow flooding and dumping loads of gravel. Dust blows over the Great Salt Lake on Monday, May 12, 2025. Trent Nelson / The Salt Lake Tribune The Great Salt Lake needs to rise to 4,198 feet to reach a minimum healthy elevation, according to state resource managers. It currently sits at 4,191.3 feet in the south arm and 4,190.8 feet in the north arm. The lake’s decline is almost entirely human caused, as cities, farmers and industries siphon away water from its tributary rivers. Climate change is also fueling the problem by taking a toll on Utah’s snowpack and streams. Warmer summers also accelerate the lake’s rate of evaporation. The two nonprofits behind the report, Utah Physicians and the Utah Rivers Council, pushed back at recent solutions for cleaning up the toxic dust offered up by policymakers and researchers. Their report panned a proposal by the state’s Speaker of the House, Mike Schultz, a Republican, to build berms around dust hotspots so salty water can rebuild a protective crust. It also knocked a proposal to tap groundwater deep beneath the lakebed and use it to help keep the playa wet. “Costly engineered stopgaps like these appear to be the foundation of the state’s short-sighted leadership on the Great Salt Lake,” the groups wrote in their report, “which could trigger a serious exodus out of Utah among wealthier households and younger populations.” Bill Johnson, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah who led research on the aquifer below the lake, said he agreed with the report’s primary message that refilling the Great Salt Lake should be the state’s priority, rather than managing it as a long-term and expensive source of pollution. Bill Johnson’s University of Utah graduate students haul their equipment out onto the playa of the Great Salt Lake on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. Rick Egan / The Salt Lake Tribune “We don’t want this to become just about dust management, and we forget about the lake,” Johnson said. “I don’t think anybody’s proposing that at this point.” It took decades of unsustainable water consumption for the Great Salt Lake to shrink to its current state, Johnson noted, and it will likely take decades for it to refill. Kevin Perry, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah and one of the top researchers studying the Great Salt Lake’s dust, said Utah Physicians and Utah Rivers Council asked him to provide feedback on their report in the spring. “It’s a much more balanced version of the document than what I saw last March,” he said of the report. “It’s still alarmist.” Perry agreed with the report’s findings that many unknowns linger about what the lakebed dust contains, and what Utahns are potentially inhaling when it becomes airborne. He said he remains skeptical that ultrafine particulates are a concern with lakebed dust. Those pollutants are typically formed through high-heat combustion sources, like diesel engines. “In the report, they just threw it all at the wall and said it has to be there,” Perry said. “I kept trying to encourage them to limit their discussion to the things we have actually documented. ” The report’s chapter outlining cost estimates for dust mitigation, however, largely aligned with Perry’s own research. Fighting back dust over the long term comes with an astronomical price tag, he said, along with the risk of leaving permanent scars from gravel beds or irrigation lines on the landscape. “Yes, we can mitigate the dust using engineered solutions,” Perry said, “but we really don’t want to go down that path if we don’t have to.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A drying Great Salt Lake is spewing toxic dust. It could cost Utah billions on Dec 1, 2025.

Agriculture

Chemicals

Climate

Illinois has few remaining wetlands. A Trump administration proposal could decimate what’s left.

If the rule takes effect, more than two-thirds of Illinois’ wetlands could lose federal protections.

The Environmental Protection Agency calls wetlands “biological supermarkets” for the sheer abundance of food they supply to a broad range of species. Roughly 40 percent of all plants and animals rely on wetlands for some part of their lifecycle. These ecosystems also filter drinking water, blunt the force of flooding, and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide — functions that make them critical in efforts to combat climate change. But the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers are now moving to slash federal protections for the nation’s wetlands and streams, potentially leaving millions of acres of habitat in Illinois and the Midwest vulnerable to being dug up, filled in, or paved over. At the heart of the proposal announced last week is a new, stricter definition to the long-debated legal term, “Waters of the United States,” the federal guidance that determines which bodies of water are protected under the 1972 Clean Water Act. The proposal codifies a 2023 Supreme Court decision that limits federal protection to wetlands that are so inseparable from larger, relatively permanent bodies of water like streams, rivers, and lakes that you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. Under the proposed rule, wetlands must contain water during the “wet season” and must be connected to a major waterbody during that season. Effectively, the new definition excludes seasonal streams and wetlands, which remain dry for much of the year. “We’re looking at up to 85 percent of the country’s wetlands losing their protected status under the Clean Water Act,” said Andrew Wetzler, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s senior vice president for nature. A 2025 analysis from the nonprofit environmental group found that approximately 70 million of the 84 million acres of wetlands across the country are at risk. Under the current regulations, developers must obtain a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers before destroying a wetland to ensure environmentally responsible practices. The new regulations will eliminate the need for a federal permit to build over wetlands, allowing developers to act with minimal environmental oversight, according to Weltzer. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin defended the move in a statement, arguing it “protects the nation’s navigable waters from pollution, advances cooperative federalism by empowering states, and will result in economic growth across the country.” Agricultural, chemical, and mining industry groups also celebrated the EPA’s push to curb federal water protections. “The Supreme Court clearly ruled several years ago that the government overreached in its interpretation of what fell under federal guidelines,” read a statement from Zippy Duval, the American Farm Bureau Federation’s president. “We are still reviewing the entire rule, but we are pleased that it finally addresses those concerns and takes steps to provide much-needed clarity.” When Europeans settled the area in the 1700s, Illinois was home to more than 8 million acres of wetlands. The state has since lost about 90 percent of that terrain to agriculture, development, and urbanization. Illinois’ wetlands alone provide $419 million worth of residential flood protection annually, according to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Since the Supreme Court decision gutted federal protections for wetlands, states like Colorado have passed their own laws to safeguard their endangered ecosystems. Illinois lawmakers have attempted to introduce similar legislation, but have yet to succeed. “The vast majority of Illinois wetlands do not have federal protection,” said Robert Hirschfeld, director of water policy at the Prairie Rivers Network. “The loss of the federal Clean Water Act means it is open season on wetlands.” A recent study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found that slashing the wetland protection could endanger the vast majority of the state’s dwindling wetlands. “We determined that about 72 percent of Illinois wetlands, which is about 700,000 acres, no longer meet that criteria for continuous surface connection to relatively permanent waters in Illinois,” said Chelsea Peters, a PhD candidate in wetland ecology at the University of Illinois and a lead author of the study. “So they are not protected by the Clean Water Act.” That figure could get higher depending on how regulators hash out wetness requirements. “The next best estimate is 90 percent,” she said. The proposal still has a long road ahead before being finalized. The EPA has opened a 45-day comment period for the public to weigh in on the proposed change. The EPA will consider these public comments before finalizing rule changes as early as the first quarter of next year. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Illinois has few remaining wetlands. A Trump administration proposal could decimate what’s left. on Nov 24, 2025.

Agriculture

Animals

Chemicals

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Together We Grow

Together We Grow is a 40-minute documentary telling the story of Common Unity, in Aotearoa New Zealand. Introducing a thriving hub helping to build resilience into its local community by growing, sewing, repairing, sharing – you name it, Common Unity is doing it! Too many of our communities, here and around the world, are facing housing crises, food insecurity, social isolation, and more. In addition, the multiple impacts of the Covid pandemic and climate change are current and ongoing. How can we most effectively confront these challenges, and help our communities thrive in an economic system that leaves many feeling trapped in poverty? Founder Julia Milne and her team have created a completely replicable model for developing strong, connected, resilient communities – a model that could be put in place across thousands of communities in Aotearoa and millions of communities across the world. They’ve proven it can be done, this film was made to help them share the story!

Social Justice

Food

Agriculture

Dry Wells of the Paso Basin: A Tragedy of the Commons

In the early 1990s, agricultural corporations and other investors began buying thousands of acres of cultivated and uncultivated land with water rights in the scenic wine country of San Luis Obispo County, California. They planted more vineyards and sank dozens of deep, powerful wells for irrigation that have over-drafted the already depleted Paso Robles Basin aquifer. Around 2010, the shallower wells of hundreds of country homes and small farms and ranches began failing. This documentary tells that story through the voices of three small landowners who lost their livelihoods and hopes for their futures when their wells went dry. The film then follows how they and their supporters organize social force to participate in local political processes to assert their water rights and their concerns for the environmental health of the Paso Basin.

Water

Agriculture

Activism

Toxic Business

A documentary on the profits international chemical companies are gaining in Africa at cost of the health of small-scaled-farmers and consumers.International chemical companies sell high toxic agro-chemicals in Kenya, which are banned since long in Europe. They are banned because their ingredients cause cancer and have a major negative impact on the nature and environment. Anyhow – in developing countries like Kenya those toxic chemicals are sold without any regulations through small agro-shops all over the country. The small scaled farmers do believe in the promises of better and safer harvest those companies give. Today, the use of pesticides even inside the villages is already a daily business. Furthermore many of them already depend on hybrid seeds, old and resistant seeds supplants. Most of the consumers do not have the knowledge, how dangerous those agro-chemicals are: the WHO announced that annually 346.000 people die, caused by accidentally poisoning with those chemicals, 2/3 of them within developing countries.In the face of world food, industry is trying to push its way into the markets. On the contrary, statistics and alternative farming methods in East Africa show that it no longer needs chemicals and hybrid seeds to feed the world, but a general rethinking.

Agriculture

Chemicals

Business

Better Bites with Bugs

The practice of eating bugs -- entomophagy -- has a lot to commend it. You may disagree. But try to put your preconceptions aside!

Agriculture

Food

Gardens Petrified

After his father's death, Yusuf goes back to his village, which he has not been to for years, and learns that a geothermal company wants to buy his father's agricultural lands and drill a well. He wants to solve problems without disrespecting his father's memory, but things don't go as he hoped.

Resources

Agriculture

Fiction

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Cookies help us run our site more efficiently.

‘Earth To Beer’: Oregon, US breweries join project to brew a beer with environment in mind

Mayfly buzzing at 5 years old

Best of Craft Beer Awards held

Sports Bra snub not appreciated

Beer of the Week

What to do, what to do?

New Releases of Note

Related News

What's Killing These Oak Trees in the Midwest? Conservationists Believe Drifting Herbicides Are to Blame

To Protect Underage Farmworkers, California Expands Oversight of Field Conditions

The environmental costs of corn: should the US change how it grows its dominant crop?

A drying Great Salt Lake is spewing toxic dust. It could cost Utah billions

Illinois has few remaining wetlands. A Trump administration proposal could decimate what’s left.

Suggested Viewing

Together We Grow

Dry Wells of the Paso Basin: A Tragedy of the Commons

Toxic Business

Better Bites with Bugs

Gardens Petrified

Join us to forgea sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Join us to forge
a sustainable future