Department of Agriculture Is Forbidden To Talk About Polluted Fields And So Many Other Things

 In a leaked memo from the US Department of Agriculture, we learned that the department—which has a duty of monitoring the health and wholesomeness of the American-grown food supply—has excluded words and phrases from its vocabulary in another move to pretend that if we don't say the words, then bad things won't happen, as if they're Lord Voldemort.

Virtually any terminology used to imply that contaminated water can pollute crops or pollute drinking water has been nixed from USDA vocabulary. The USDA, the department that oversees our fields and farms, can't talk about pollution in our fields and farms in any meaningful way by direction of the administration. They can't discuss pollution in rural drinking water (where farms tend to be), or cleaner fuels used in American farms.

The USDA also operates a program that provides home loans to people who wouldn't otherwise qualify for standard home loans. These are often farmers and farm workers and other lower income people who live and work in rural areas. Forbidden from USDA words and phrases are all the terms that point to affordable housing, including the terms used by the USDA Department of Rural Development. As I am writing this, Rural Development has not yet updated its website. I'm not sure how it will update its website; they will have to invent new terminology as a workaround.

As of right now, some pages in the vast array of pages at the USDA have not been updated to eliminate forbidden words and phrases such as "affordable housing."

Non-comprehensive List of Banned Terms

runoff, membrane filtration, microplastics, water pollution, air pollution, soil pollution, groundwater pollution, pollution remediation, pollution abatement, sediment remediation, contaminants of environmental concern, CEC, PFAS, PFOA, PCB, nonpoint source pollution, water collection, water treatment, water storage, water distribution, water management, rural water, agricultural water, water conservation, water efficiency, water quality, clean water, safe drinking water, field drainage, tile drainage, clean power, clean fuel, diesel, alternative energy, geothermal, solar energy, solar power, photovoltaic, agrivoltaics, wind power, nuclear energy, nuclear power, bioenergy, biofuel, biogas, biomethane, ethanol, diesel, aviation fuel, pyrolysis, energy conversion, electric vehicle, hydrogen vehicle, fuel cell, low-emission vehicle, affordable housing, affordable home, low-income housing, subsidized housing, transitional housing, housing affordability, housing efficiency, prefabricated housing

Leaked USDA Memo Reveals Banned Word List

Leaked Memo Reveals Insane Ban on Words Agriculture Department Can Say | The New Republic

Single Family Housing Programs | Rural Development