Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/category/agribusiness/page/2/)
As coronavirus cases mounted at meatpacking plants this month, the federal government granted 15 poultry processors waivers to cut chickens faster, usually by crowding more workers onto their production lines.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector tasked with ensuring safe food quality at meat processing plants died Thursday after testing positive for COVID-19, a source who was on a call in which the federal agency confirmed the death told USA TODAY.
The closure of major pork processing plants across the U.S., including the massive Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls, has state officials and pork producers in South Dakota planning for the worst — the potential euthanization of thousands of hogs that cannot be sold.
We're tracking closures, cases of Covid-19 among workers and employee deaths in the meatpacking industry. Search our database for impact in your area.
Wisconsin had had the most farmers file for Chapter 12, or farm, bankruptcy in recent years. But one area has a particularly high concentration of filings.
Farmers across the U.S. are prepping for planting season, amid concerns about how the Covid-19 pandemic could disrupt the supply chain, lead to labor shortages and influence price manipulation. Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, raised these concerns in a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday. The letter discussed the need for farm laborers, as the State Department is not processing any non-emergency visas and the unique markets farmers are facing during the outbreak. First reported in December, there are now just over 229,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide as of Thursday morning - including more than 10,700 cases in the U.S. according to data collected by John Hopkins University.
Since the highly-infectious respiratory illness was declared a worldwide pandemic on March 11, U.S. federal and state officials have made moves to limit its spread, including closing down schools, restaurants and bars, cancelling large events and encouraging people to practice ‘social distancing’ by keeping at least 6-feet away from others.
Duvall wrote that social distancing could have a “significant impact on the processing plants that drive America’s supply chain.” These include meat packing plants, dairy processors, ethanol plants and others. He also raised concerns about farmers’ access to seed, fertilizer and chemicals. For now, even as grocery shelves empty across the United States amidst the coronavirus pandemic, food suppliers and retailers have promised there is plenty of food in reserve.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Kraft Foods Group, Inc. have reached a tentative second out-of-court agreement in an ongoing saga that stemmed from the food company’s alleged wheat futures market manipulation nearly a decade ago.
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.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, reached a settlement Monday with Frontier Ag Inc. concerning three facilities in Kansas that were violating the Clean Air Act in Oct. 2018.
The Trump Administration has paid farmers billions to offset losses from ongoing trade wars, but millions have also gone to an alternative farm lender.
Agrifund LLC, which does business as Ag Resource Management, or ARM, has received more trade mitigation money than anyone else, according to a Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture data.