U.S. corporate agriculture is responsible for some of our most serious water quality issues according to a recent report by the Environment America Research and Policy Center. “Pollution from agribusiness is responsible for some of America’s most intractable water quality problems – including the ‘dead zones’ in the Chesapeake Bay, Gulf of Mexico and Lake Erie, and the pollution of countless streams and lakes with nutrients, bacteria, sediment and pesticides,” the report says.

While farming is not an inherently polluting activity, today’s agribusiness practices – including the concentration of thousands of animals and their waste in small feedlots and the massive planting of chemical-intensive crops such as corn, “make water pollution from agribusiness both much more likely and much more dangerous,” the report says.

Environment America’s research names eight of the world’s largest companies and links each to a regional pollution problem.  >Read More or >Download Full Report