Chemical intensive agriculture is taking a toll that goes far beyond the farm. Pesticide contamination does not stay where it is applied. It moves through water, through insects, through the animals that eat them, through the food we grow and the air we breathe.
The consequences include collapsing insect populations, steep declines in bird and bat species, and crop losses. Research has even linked the loss of insectivorous bats to measurable increases in infant mortality, as farmers turn to more insecticides to replace the pest control bats once provided.
The human health stakes are growing more serious by the day. Pesticide exposure has been linked to cancer, hormone disruption, neurological damage, and reproductive harm. Widely used herbicides like glyphosate are linked to the rise of multidrug resistant infections, yet another urgent dimension to an already critical public health crisis.
Congress has the power to change course. A truly sustainable Farm Bill would reduce our dependence on chemical inputs, invest in organic and regenerative agriculture, and protect the ecosystems that farmers and communities rely on.
TAKE ACTION: Congress Is Using the Farm Bill to Increase Pesticide Use. Tell Them to Do the Opposite!
Pesticide use has spawned a vicious cycle:
Birds and bats eat insects contaminated with pesticides. Pesticide poisoning kills birds and bats.
With fewer birds and bats consuming less insects, more insecticides are used to address the growing pest problem.
The more insecticides are used, the more human babies are exposed, and infant mortality rises.
Congress could fix this, but instead, it’s using the Farm Bill to deregulate pesticides and pay farmers to use more!
Insecticides Kill Birds
A third of North America’s bird population—about 3 billion birds—has disappeared since 1970. From 1987 to 2021, half of all bird species diminished significantly, while one quarter are declining at an accelerated pace.
Birds are disappearing the fastest in agricultural regions, indicating that insecticides are to blame, and, in fact, insecticide residues in birds’ nests correlate with dead offspring and unhatched eggs.
Insecticides Kill Bats
More than half of bat species in North America are at risk of severe declines over the next 15 years.
When bats eat pesticide-contaminated insects, the poisoning can reach toxic levels in their brains — making them more susceptible to the deadly fungal disease white-nose syndrome.
Less Birds and Bats Means More Insecticides
Birds reduce crop damage from insect pests, significantly increasing crop yield. Globally, birds consume 28 million tons of insects from agricultural landscapes each year.
Bats are even more important biological control agents. In addition to managing pest populations, bats are pollinators. In fact, they are the only nocturnal insect predator and one of just two nocturnal pollinators (alongside moths). Bat population declines are costing American farmers as much as $495 million each year.
Infant Mortality Rises With Pesticide Use
A study that looked at bats, insecticide use, and infant mortality from 2006-2017 found that, after bat die-offs, on average, farmers increase insecticide use by 31.1 percent, and infant mortality rates increase by 7.9 percent—that’s an additional 1,334 infant deaths.
Congress Could Fix This. Instead, It’s Making the Problem Worse
The 2026 House Farm Bill does two things that would massively increase pesticide use:
1. Pesticide deregulation. The bill guts the Environmental Protection Agency's authority over pesticides (including GMO crops engineered to produce their own insecticides). On April 30, 2026, the House voted to strike sections 10205, 10206, and 10207 that would have stripped the states and the courts of their powers to protect us. This was a huge victory, but it was partial.
2. Stealing money from pesticide-reduction programs to pay farmers to use pesticides. Environmental quality and conservation programs intended for farming methods that decrease pesticide use would be earmarked for "precision agriculture." Just like "precision fermentation" is genetically modified microbes spitting out GMO proteins, "precision agriculture" means the same old GMOs, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers, only with big tech's artificial intelligence making the decisions instead of farmers.
Pesticide Companies Would Still Get a Free Pass to Poison Us
Even after the removal of sections 10205, 10206, and 10207, the 2026 House Farm Bill still takes away most of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s powers to review and regulate pesticides, including GMOs crops engineered to produce their own pesticides.
The 2026 House Farm Bill completely guts the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), with sweeping exemptions and huge changes, making EPA’s pesticide authority weak to non-existent.
Click here to learn what was removed and what remains of the pesticide deregulation subtitle in the House Farm Bill.
Money Would Be Robbed from Pesticide Reduction Programs to Pay Farmers to Use Pesticides
The 2026 House Farm Bill lets Bayer and its business partners break into programs intended to reduce pesticide use. The word "regenerative" doesn't appear in this Farm Bill even once, but the catch phrase Bayer came up with for its business model, "precision agriculture" is in the bill dozens of times.
Under the guise of "precision agriculture," the 2026 House Farm Bill lets the largest most industrialized farms get payments from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program. The bill also directs research funding to precision agriculture, as well as digital agriculture and automation.
"Precision agriculture" is defined as "managing, tracking, or reducing crop or livestock production inputs, including seed, feed, fertilizer, chemicals, water, and time, at a heightened level of spatial and temporal granularity and biological targeting to improve efficiencies, reduce waste, and maintain environmental quality." Notice the way that's worded. Big tech pitches farmers with the promise that investing in their tools will mean spending less money on pesticides and fertilizers, but that's not a requirement here. The bill says "precision agriculture" is about "managing, tracking, OR reducing ... inputs."
With the addition of "precision agriculture," EQIP would be stretched to the breaking point, but the 2026 House Farm Bill wouldn't expand its budget. On the contrary, EQIP would be cut by $1 billion. With big tech's "managing" and "tracking" hoovering up scarce resources, there will be far less EQIP money for regenerative agriculture practices. Not a new problem, unfortunately. Before "precision agriculture," most EQIP dollars went to helping factory farms manage their manure lagoons.
TAKE ACTION: Congress Is Using the Farm Bill to Increase Pesticide Use. Tell Them to Do the Opposite!