Keith Schneider | Circle of Blue

With $2.8 billion in annual sales, and roughly 280 million pounds applied annually on U.S. crop fields, most of it corn and soybeans in Michigan and other Midwest states, glyphosate is the best-selling farm chemical every in American agriculture.

Conflict over a blockbuster farm chemical

Glyphosate is the best-selling farm chemical ever in American agriculture. $2.8 billion in annual sales and roughly 280 million pounds applied annually on U.S. crop fields, most of it on corn and soybeans in Michigan and other Midwest farm states.

Provisions of the climate change statute appear certain to increase the already immense tide of farm-related nutrient pollution draining from the land and contaminating surface and groundwater in the grain-growing regions of the Great Lakes states and the Midwest Corn Belt.

Environment & Climate Change

New US climate law could make Midwest water contamination worse

Keith Schneider | Circle of Blue

Billions in clean energy incentives rely on raw materials from polluting corn and livestock.

Environment & Climate Change

Danger looms where toxic algae blooms

Keith Schneider | Circle of Blue

Billions spent on strategies to limit nutrient pollution that don't work.

Michigan counts nearly 11,000 agricultural wells, 3,800 of them installed from 2010 to 2020. Once concentrated in southwest Michigan, high-volume irrigation wells have spread north as far as Antrim County, and through central Michigan.

Environment & Climate Change

As drought grips American West, irrigation becomes selling point for Michigan

Keith Schneider | Circle of Blue

Michigan farmers irrigate with 187 billion gallons of groundwater a year. Is the state prepared for more?