Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/author/pdempsey/)
The last major independent U.S. cattle trade organization, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF), says enough is enough. R-CALF has filed a class action lawsuit alleging four beef packers manipulated the cash market. R-CALF Chief Executive Officer Bill Bullard pulled no punches in suggesting the Big 4 is dirty.
As Dave Dickey writes, the chicken industry says consolidation has benefited consumers through increased productivity. But chicken farmers say weakening of the Packers and Stockyards Act had done little beyond lining Big Ag's pockets at their expense. And this could mean some voters may change their mind in 2020.
Chlorpyrifos - scientists say there is no acceptable dose to avoid brain damage. Its use is banned in several European countries. Yet its residues are found in fruit baskets, on dinner plates, and in human urine samples from all over Europe. Now producers are pushing for a renewed EU-approval - perhaps in vain.
The rainbow trout released into Prairie Lakes were fine to eat because they came from a hatchery. But trying to distinguish what fish to eat from one Midwest state to the next can be difficult, an IowaWatch/Cedar Falls Tiger Hi-Line investigation showed.
That’s because rules guiding what’s safe to eat vary in each state. Also, despite fish sampling by the states, knowing where to fish is hard because fish from only a few waterways where people fish are tested each year, the investigation showed. Anglers at farm ponds are on their own when it comes to the health of the fish they catch because the state’s natural resources department (DNR) does not sample fish in private water bodies for contamination.
The value of the property seized has totaled in hundreds of millions of dollars in property, cash, jewelry and real estate over the last eight years, according to an analysis of Illinois State Police data by the Midwest Center for Investigative Center.
Increasing lawsuits and allegations of civil right violations prompted the Illinois legislature to pass reforms of civil asset forfeitures that went into effect last year.
Foreign investors acquired at least 1.6 million acres of U.S. agricultural land in 2016, the largest increase in more than a decade, according to the latest available federal data.
The latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that foreign investors control 28.3 million acres, valued at $52.2 billion. That area is about the size of the state of Ohio.
Federal Research and Development dollars are crucial to help farmers produce more food, fiber and fuel while at the same time consuming fewer natural resources and protect public health.
It's a huge job.
You would think funding for this sort of stuff would be a no brainer. But federal agriculture research and development funding has stagnated in recent years.
Of 400 pesticides used on agriculture crops across the U.S, glyphosate is used at least three times more than all others, according to an analysis of data estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Some agriculture experts fear old mistakes are being repeated as farmers rely more on the weed killer dicamba.