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Coronavirus

While Covid-19 upends supply chains, farms that sell locally thrive

By Marissa Plescia, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | August 6, 2020

Not all farms are struggling equally during the pandemic. Retail market farms, who sell directly to the consumer, are actually doing pretty well.

Coronavirus

Analysis: N.C.’s rural Covid-19 rate stems from meatpacking plants
By Sandy Smith-Nonini, The Daily Yonder | August 6, 2020
While nursing homes and prisons made up most rural hot spots in the spring, growing evidence now points to a different major “engine of spread” that has lurked beneath the radar of public awareness and official recognition: meat-processing.
They warned OSHA they were in “imminent danger” at the meat plant. Now they’re suing the agency.
By Bernice Yeung and Michael Grabell, ProPublica | July 24, 2020
Frustrated by the lack of response to their complaint of the “imminent danger” posed by COVID-19, three meatpacking workers at the Maid-Rite Specialty Foods plant outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania, took the unusual step Wednesday of filing a lawsuit against the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia.
Covid-19 pandemic drives food prices up
By Pramod Acharya, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | July 24, 2020
More Americans have stayed home to cook during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they've paid a higher price for their home meals. While the cost of restaurant foods remained steady through the past few months, the price consumers paid for foods at grocery stores has steeply risen since March 2020. As customers rushed to stock up […]

Agribusiness

Graphic: Agricultural workers still denied millions in wages each year
By Pramod Acharya | August 7, 2020
Tens of thousands of agricultural workers have been denied wages by their employers — a violation of labor laws — over the past two decades, according to Department of Labor data.
Pilgrim’s Pride reports second quarter loss, dropping sales
By Heather Schlitz, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | July 30, 2020
Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, one of the largest meatpacking companies in the U.S., reported second quarter earnings due to challenges posed by COVID-19, with shares falling 4% in after-hours trading on Wednesday.
Six years and Tuscola residents still waiting on Cronus fertilizer plant
By Claire O'Brien, Therese Pokorney, Reily Sharpe/For Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | July 30, 2020
The company behind the proposal, Cronus Chemicals Inc. has periodically announced new construction dates, new business partners, new leadership and new cost estimates that still leaves the 250-acres of open field farmland undeveloped.

Dicamba on Trial

In Roundup settlement, Bayer reaches $400 million deal with farmers over dicamba
By Johnathan Hettinger, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | June 24, 2020
Bayer has reached a $400 million settlement with farmers whose crops have been damaged by drift from the herbicide dicamba, the company announced Wednesday. The settlement was announced alongside the company’s $10 billion settlement over claims that the herbicide Roundup causes cancer.
Federal court denies motion to hold EPA in contempt of dicamba ruling
By Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | June 19, 2020
A request to hold the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in contempt of a June 3 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals order to vacate registrations of the weed killer dicamba was denied Friday.
EPA defends decision to allow continued dicamba use
By Johnathan Hettinger, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | June 17, 2020
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defended its decision to allow farmers to continue to spray a recently banned herbicide through July 31 in a court filing on Tuesday evening. The agency argued that it has the power to regulate existing stocks of herbicides that have been canceled.

Wellness on the Farm

“Fall-off-a-cliff moment”: Covid-19 adds new dimension to farmers’ stress
By Marissa Plescia, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
Farmers faced high levels of stress before the pandemic. But the virus’s impact on agriculture has only deepened some farmers’ stress, experts said.
SEEDS OF DESPAIR: Isolated, and with limited access to mental-health care, hundreds are dying by suicide.
By Katie Wedell, USA TODAY NETWORK Lucille Sherman, USA TODAY NETWORK Sky Chadde, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
American farmers produce nearly all of the country’s food and contribute some $133 billion annually to the gross domestic product. Yet they now are saddled with near-record debt, declaring bankruptcy at rising rates and selling off their farms amid an uncertain future clouded by climate change and whipsawed by tariffs and bailouts. For some, the burden is too much to bear.
Seeking a Cure: Mental health access scarce in rural, farming communities
By Claire Hettinger and Pam Dempsey, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
With farmers facing increasing stress and depression, Midwestern states and national farm groups are making more efforts to better provide services to alleviate the high rate of suicide among the agriculture industry. Yet in rural areas, this care is more of a challenge.

Government

The fertilizer that might have caused the Beirut explosion is all over the US. It’s unevenly regulated.
By Joe Wertz, Center for Public Integrity
As investigators work to find the official cause of the blast, Lebanon President Michel Aoun said it was fueled by an estimated 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate that was stored unsafely in a warehouse.
Thousands of households have received those mysterious packages of seeds. All 50 states warn against planting them.
By Pramod Acharya, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
The unsolicited packages of seed appear to be coming from China, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). USDA on Tuesday asked the recipients to hold the seeds and packaging, including the mailing label, until authorities contact them.
USDA report: Beef prices spike after pandemic declared
By Heather Schlitz, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
After a state of emergency was declared in the U.S. on March 13, beef production, prices and spread were likely impacted by consumer stockpiling of meat and declining demand from restaurants as take-out and delivery became the only options, according to the report.

Environment

EPA Inspector General: Covid-19 could affect agency’s ability to communicate health risks to communities
By Samuel Trilling, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | June 25, 2020
Covid-19 could hamper the EPA’s ability to inform communities of health risks, according to a report released this month from the agency’s Office of Inspector General. Specifically, the inspector general’s office worried the EPA might not be able to inform residents who live near facilities with emissions that could cause cancer. In a separate report […]
EPA sidesteps normal public process to approve BASF’s cancer-linked pesticide
By Johnathan Hettinger, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | April 3, 2020
This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that soybean farmers in 25 states are now able to spray a pesticide that the agency has determined is likely to cause cancer and drift hundreds of feet from where it is applied.
As sales of the pesticide chlorpyrifos ends in California, maker Corteva announces it will stop producing it.
By Sky Chadde/Gannett Ag Data Fellow | February 7, 2020
Corteva Agriscience – the main manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that has been linked to brain damage in children – said it would stop its production by the end of this year.

Investigate Midwest The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting

Coronavirus

While Covid-19 upends supply chains, farms that sell locally thrive

By Marissa Plescia, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | August 6, 2020

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