Ken Cook

Here's a simple proposition to test whether the food movement can stand up to Big Ag. We're asking readers who care about providing healthier food to school children to take a stand by voting on our resolution: A Farm Bill for Healthy Kids.

Be it resolved: Notwithstanding the need for...

Under mounting pressure from consumers, scientists, advocacy groups and lawsuits, the U.S. government is about to decide whether to ban the ubiquitous industrial chemical BPA (bisphenol-A) from food packaging, including infant formula and canned food.

If the U.S. Food and Drug Administration takes that step, it will...

The farm subsidy lobby and a handful of their powerful Congressional allies are working overtime to skirt normal democratic processes, write a farm bill behind closed doors and slip it into law through the congressional Super Committee. But their plan to write a secret farm bill is finally...

In nearly two decades of research and advocacy on pesticides and human health, Environmental Working Group has never before seen the produce industry take a high-profile role in debates over pesticide policy and safety, as it has this year. Invariably, it was the trade association for the pesticide industry that...

When industry lobbyists want the government to do something the public won't like, they usually go about it quietly.

Not so for the produce and pesticide lobby. It's been pushing for months to have the government adopt the industry spin on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's upcoming annual report on...

When Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) spoke to the Organic Trade Association's Washington Policy Conference the other day, her talk had two parts: the part where she left the distinct impression that she had no idea whom she was talking to, and the part where it seemed she didn't care.

To judge by the results of their budget-slashing, all-night tea party a few weeks back, Republicans must have swarmed out of their caucus and onto the floor of the House of Representatives with a single rallying cry on their lips.

Women and children first!

No, that's not whom Republicans vowed...

Food and agriculture policy always comes down to money: how federal dollars will be prioritized and spent. If anyone needed reminders of this dynamic, 2010 provided at least two.

The lesson to be drawn from both is very simple. If "civilians" (as in taxpayers) don't stand up in politically significant...

What's in that stuff you're dumping your head/rubbing into your face/ pouring into your bath? How about the stuff that goes onto - and, quickly, into - your kids' bodies?

Because personal care products are essentially unregulated and sketchily labeled, it's not easy for consumers to find out exactly what...

2010 won't be all lemons for BP. Sure, the company will be best remembered for blowout preventers, top kill and Tony Hayward, but along the way the oil giant stands to make a killing from its investment in the US ethanol industry and the special tax breaks that came with...

On Wednesday, March 24, the full Senate Agriculture Committee endorsed Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln's Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. Her goal of providing $4.5 billion to put healthier food in the mouths of America's children is laudable. Unfortunately, her proposal breaks a promise that helped ensure passage of the 2008 farm...

Patagonia is PO'd, and in corporate America there's no worse brand to get dissed by if you're trying to sell in the green space.

Patagonia is the gold standard for environmentally responsible business. And at the company's insistence, it's recycled gold.

The Ventura, Calif. firm and icon of...

SIGG CEO Steve Wasik called earlier today to discuss Environmental Working Group's (EWG) response to his recent announcement that SIGG water bottles did in fact contain the toxic chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in their liners until August 2008.

Wasik's announcement has caused an uproar because the company led consumers...

In the Huffington Post on November 11th, Dave Vander Griend took aim at a coalition of food companies opposing the federal mandate for biofuels production. For months, these companies have felt the same pinch consumers in America and across the globe have felt as food prices have spiked, spurred...