When people think about the Farm Bill, they may picture fields of grain, farmworkers safely picking peaches, or a table full of nutritious food. Done right, the farm bill would foster food security, child nutrition, worker protection, and environmental sustainability. But H.R. 2, the version of the farm bill that the House of Representatives ruined with dangerous policy riders that threaten water, wildlife and workers, would be more accurately called the “harm bill.”

Why? For starters, the farm bill functions like a time machine — transporting American Agriculture policy back nearly 60 years to a period when we didn’t understand the harms of dangerous pesticides and their deadly impacts on human health and wildlife.

The farm bill abandons the lessons of Rachel Carson’s landmark book, “Silent Spring,” published in 1962. Carson uncovered the horrible truth about the pesticide DDT — that it caused cancer in people and was driving quintessential wildlife like the American Bald Eagle to the brink of extinction. By rolling back protections against dangerous pesticides and allowing big corporations to spew dangerous chemicals into our air, water and land, the farm bill reestablishes those threats. 

Under this legislation, companies could dump pesticides directly into our water supply without any meaningful oversight, putting communities at risk. Key safeguards that protect pollinators and other vulnerable species from toxic pesticides are eliminated. Killing pollinators like bees, birds, insects, and bats — hurts crop growth patterns and makes it harder for farmers to grow healthy crops and feed our families.

Not surprisingly, the farm bill pretends climate change is a hoax and missed the opportunity to make progress on climate change in the agricultural sector in spite of the fact that it impacts farmers now and will only get worse.

Farmers, farmworkers, and consumers will face new risks from exposure to new pesticides allowed to be sold and used on our food supply under this farm bill. There are approximately 2.5 million farmworkers in the United States, including 500,000 children. Under this bill, farmworker children and their families would be working with some of the most toxic products on the market with limited access to information about what they’re exposed to and how to protect themselves.

The farm bill should be a non-starter for its pesticide provisions alone, but it gets worse. H.R. 2 would cut nearly $1 billion in funding for conservation overall, with the Conservation Stewardship Program taking the biggest hit. Conservation programs are essential for advancing soil health, protecting water quality and preserving wildlife habitat on farm land.

But that’s not all. The House bill guts existing laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Endangered Species Act. The NEPA provisions in the bill exclude the public from participating in public lands management. In a massive giveaway to the logging industry, it eviscerates the Roadless Area Conservation rule in Alaska, home of our wildest national forests. Most disturbingly, the bill stacks the deck against conservation and states’ authority in the courts by overriding state laws governing agriculture products and the accompanying right to enforce those protections, while at the same time expanding judicial rights for industry. This bill essentially casts aside the scales of justice to pad profits for big corporations.

The farm bill is supposed to be about feeding people. This bill deprives American families of nutrition by making it more difficult for families including children, seniors and persons with disabilities, to have access to food by cutting and otherwise restricting the SNAP program. Millions of Americans and their families rely on this assistance to meet their basic needs.

Across the Capitol, the Senate has decided to act like the adult at the table and produced a bipartisan farm bill without the egregious and dangerous riders in the House bill. Should these bills move to conference, Senators must stand strong and reject the House’s “harm bill” and its damaging provisions.

While the Senate Farm Bill is by no means perfect, it doesn’t turn back the clock on environmental and health protections, conservation, and feeding people. Americans deserve a farm bill that seeks to do no harm — one which supports agriculture and farmers without pitting these interests against the greater good.

Marty Hayden is vice president of Policy & Legislation of Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization.