• Water is contaminated in 38 states, polluting the primary source of drinking water for more than half the country’s population.

• Modern farming uses more petroleum than any other single industry, consuming 12 percent of the country’s total energy supply.  More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate, and harvest all the crops in the US.

• Air Quality is being contaminated.  Some herbicides actually evaporate into the air after application and drift for miles (still having negative effects on plant life).

• Farmers plow sewage sludge into croplands and contaminate the foods we eat.
According to Cornell University soil erosion is occuring 7 times faster than it can be replaced at a cost of $44 billion a year.

Conventional food prices do not reflect hidden cost such as:
    -pesticide regulation & testing
    -hazardous waste disposal & clean up
    -environmental damage
    -astronomical cost of illnesses &
    -hospitalizations due to contaminants

Environmental Protection Agency states pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms:
                  60% of all herbicides
                  90% of all fungicides
                  30% of all insecticides are carcinogenic

Pesticides are linked to cancer
                                  implicated in birth defects
                                  nerve damage
                                  genetic mutation

The average American consumes 1 gallon of pesticides in a year.

Children are more at risk (4x) than an adult to chemical exposure (pesticides).
Recent studies show that trace levels of multiple pesticides cause increased aggression and irritability.
 
The Journal of the American Medical Association reports heavy metals (ex lead) have been associated with :   

                 -learning disabilities (add)
                 -aggressive behavior
                 -delinquency
 At least 7 other studies show that violent criminals have elevated levels of lead, cadmium, manganese, mercury and other toxic chemicals in their bodies.

The New England Journal of Medicine has reported that children who are exposed to low levels of PCBs (toxic industrial chemicals) in the womb grow up with poor reading comprehension, low IQs and memory problems.

Cancer rates have increased since 1901 from only 1 in 8,000 Americans, to 1 in 3 today!