A Texas community chokes on fecal dust from cattle feedlots … And regulators aren’t doing anything about it.

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This story was produced in collaboration with The Texas Observer , Food and Environment Reporting Network and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. This article may not be reproduced without express permission from FERN. If you are interested in republishing or reposting this article, please contact info@thefern.org.  
Lawrence Brorman eases his pickup through plowed farmland in Deaf Smith County, an impossibly flat stretch of the Texas Panhandle where cattle outnumber people 40 to 1. The 67-year-old farmer and rancher brings the vehicle to a stop at the field’s southern edge.

Announcing our first-ever audience engagement fellow, Anna Casey

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Illinois Humanities and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting jointly announced today that Anna Casey has been named their first-ever Audience Engagement Fellow. During the 12-month term of her Fellowship, Casey will work full-time with the Center, a Champaign-based nonprofit investigative newsroom focused on agriculture and agribusiness, to build dialogue with the community members and involve them more deeply in the reporting process.

Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting

Applications now open for the Illinois Humanities Engagement Fellowship

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We are seeking applicants for the Illinois Humanities Engagement Fellowship at the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting in Champaign, Ill. In collaboration with MCIR and Illinois Humanities staff, the Engagement Fellow will design, develop and implement an engagement program to be substantially integrated into MCIR’s reporting and editorial workflow. Deadline to apply is April 10.

2016: A year in photos

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Over the past year, the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting has covered agribusiness from the lens of migrant labor to ethanol spills to climate change to Big Ag mergers. Here is our coverage in pictures.

#agalerts

Plan for 20,000-hog facility sparks revolt in western Illinois | Chicago Tribune

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Efforts like this one have largely failed during the past two decades as pork producers constructed more than 900 new swine confinements across Illinois, often brushing aside farm families’ concerns about sickening odors, road damage, depletion of wells and fouling of creeks. But this network of farmsteads set amid rolling hills has become the newest battleground where small-town residents are trying to fend off a leading U.S. pork producer

Your donation is tripled – support nonprofit journalism now

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Now more than ever, we need hard-working journalists to produce fact-based journalism that supports our democracy by telling the truth and holding powerful institutions accountable. Your tax-deductible donation to the Midwest Center will be tripled and fund our reporters and center as they do the stories that matter.

Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting gets Knight Foundation’s #newsmatch challenge

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The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting is one of nearly 60 nonprofit news organizations selected by the Knight Foundation to participate in the Knight News Match challenge. Knight Foundation has created a $1.5 million fund for a group of nonprofit journalism news outlets to support their work and help them expand their base of individual donors. Please consider a $10, $25 or even $50 gift. Donate now!From Dec. 19, 2016 to Jan.