Giving Compass' Take:

• Scientists at the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, started doing their own analysis of pesticides and produced a list reminding us of the real risks from chemicals in our food.

• How can funders help protect children and adults from the harms of pesticides? 

• Learn about how wind-blown pesticides are an issue across America.

Every year U.S. farmers use about a billion pounds of chemicals on crops, including the fruits, nuts and vegetables many parents beg their kids to eat. The Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration are charged with ensuring that these chemicals don’t endanger consumers, and both agencies test the food supply for pesticide residues each year. They focus on foods eaten by babies and children, whose developing bodies are particularly sensitive to toxic chemicals, and typically report that pesticide residues in these products rarely exceed safety standards.

Yet the agencies’ pesticide monitoring approach suffers from several limitations that make it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about pesticide risks to the nation’s food supply, experts say. What’s more, government agencies don’t monitor risks to farmworkers who labor among those chemicals, or to pregnant women and children who live near agricultural fields.

Read the full article on pesticide monitoring by Liza Gross at The New Food Economy.