To the Editor:

Re “Polluting Farmers Should Pay” (Sunday Review, Aug. 25):

Catherine Kling is right: “Those who cause the pollution should be required to pay for the cleanup.” But a focus on regulations, penalties and farmers is misguided.

The causes of pollution are many, and a half century of federal policy bears a large portion of the blame. So do decades of trade policy, land-grant universities whose research encouraged the use of fertilizers, agribusinesses that developed and sold the fertilizers, states that permitted excessive applications of manure and American consumers who have come to expect an excess of cheap food.

Farmers, who have done what the markets and policymakers have asked of them, are ever more aware of the need to do things differently. Increasingly, they embrace no-till farming, cover crops and other methods that help them and the environment. They deserve support as they adapt and change.

Brian Williams

Columbus, Ohio

The writer is a food systems consultant.

To the Editor:

Catherine Kling suggests that the federal government’s hands are tied when applying the Clean Water Act to agriculture. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency has refused for decades to use its authority to prevent water pollution from factory farms, which concentrate thousands of animals and their waste, severely threatening water quality.