Comments on agriculture, farm policy, and food safety.

The lead writer of Mulch, Ken Cook is president and co-founder of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a public interest research and advocacy organization that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment. The author of dozens of articles, opinion pieces and reports on environmental, public health and agricultural topics, including Mulch, a blog about food and agriculture policy, Cook is regularly listed as one of Washington's Top Lobbyists by The Hill (the Capitol Hill newspaper). Cook is a frequent source of environmental perspective and commentary in national print and broadcast media. He has made frequent appearances on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, CBS's 60 Minutes, National Public Radio, and the evening newscasts of ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN among other programs. In the 10 years since its founding in 1993, EWG has earned renown for its innovative, headline-making computer investigations of environmental problems and polluters' anti-environmental lobbying. The organization's research and analysis have made it a major force in national policy debates over toxic chemicals, pesticides, air and water pollution, and the ecological impacts of modern agriculture.

Cook and EWG have been the subject of numerous newspaper profiles, including the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Chicago Tribune and The Des Moines Register. Cook is known for his decades of research and advocacy to reform agriculture policy to advance conservation and environmental protection. At the onset of debate over the 1995 Farm Bill, a front-page story in The Des Moines Register named Cook as one of the five most influential players in agricultural policy, alongside then-Senator Bob Dole, Leon Panetta (then the head of the Office of Management and Budget), then USDA Secretary Mike Espy, and former Farm Bureau head Dean Kleckner. A front-page profile in The Omaha World Herald in 1996 said, "[Cook's] fingerprints can be found on nearly two decades of U.S. farm law." In 2000, Progressive Farmer named Cook one of agriculture's most influential leaders in the 20th Century, alongside advocates like Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold.

EWG is perhaps best known in agriculture policy circles for its Farm Subsidy Database, which lists all the nation's farm subsidy recipients and their share of the $165 billion taxpayers have spent on the programs since 1995. The New York Times (24 Feb 02) credited EWG's web site with helping "transform the [2002] farm bill into a question about equity and whether the country's wealthiest farmers should be paid to grow commodity crops while many smaller family farms receive nothing and are going out of business." A National Journal profile (26 Jan 02) described EWG as a "lean, mean, muckraking machine" and "a small group with a big punch" that conducts research "with sometimes policy-rattling results." Cook earned B.A. (history), B.S.(agriculture), and M.S. (soil science) degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is a board member of Earthday Network and the Amazon Conservation Team. He is married to Deb Callahan and lives in Washington, D.C.