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Opinion: Supreme Court ruling could make FOIA more opaque

By Dave Dickey / Big Ag Watch | April 10, 2019

Later this month – April 22 to be exact – the newly minted conservative U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media.

Database: Tracking Covid-19’s impact on meatpacking workers and industry

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) meat inspectors and graders perform their mission.

Rural America

Rural residents face diminishing access to quality nursing homes
By Karen Liu, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | May 20, 2020
Pressure ulcers, gangrene, sepsis and amputation. That is what a nursing home resident suffered while under the care of Aperion Care Cairo in 2018, according to state inspection document. The resident first developed treatable wounds at the facility, but no documentation of physician notification or treatment initiation was found, according to a quarterly report by Illinois Department of Public Health. The resident’s condition deteriorated over the next three months, which eventually resulted in an emergency “guillotine” amputation through the knee and a subsequent above-the-knee amputation. The facility failed to recognize the development of pressure ulcers and did not implement measures to promote healing, according to the report.

Trump executive order didn’t stop meat plant closures. Seven more shut in the past week.

A week after President Donald Trump attempted to prop up the nation's meat supply chain through an executive order, the industry remains hobbled by plant closures and production losses, USA TODAY and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting found.

Amid pandemic uncertainty – meat shortages, livestock slaughter and a freezer full of food Grocery stores may soon face meat shortages. Hogs and chickens are being euthanized. Cattle are being put out to pasture. And America’s storage freezers have more ground beef, chicken breasts and legs, french fries and onion rings than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a wrench into the United States’ supply chain, having wide-ranging results that ...
Wisconsin leads the nation in farm bankruptcies. This area has the most. 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.

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SEEDS OF DESPAIR: Isolated, and with limited access to mental-health care, hundreds are dying by suicide.

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Food supply issues

A roundup of news, reports, and research on agribusiness and related issues. CEOs Say America Is Running Out of Meat—While Shipping Ever More Pork Overseas | Mother Jones Back in March, the coronavirus started triggering infection hotspots in and around meatpacking plants, sickening and killing workers.

Opinion

Opinion: Will feds rise to the long-term challenges of COVID-19?

It’s really no wonder that the latest Pew Research Survey said that just 17 % of Americans currently trust government to do the right thing all or most of the time. In all fairness it just isn’t the current POTUS. Trust in the federal government has been declining for years in the wake of a boatload of poorly mishandled crisis – the invasion of Iraq, the response to Hurricane Katrina, the Deepwater Horizon oil well explosion, the inability to sign up for the Affordable Care Act to name just a few.

From the USDA

Secretary Perdue Issues Letters on Meat Packing Expectations

(Washington, D.C., May 6, 2020) - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue last night sent the following two letters to Governors across the nation and leadership of major meat processing companies. These letters establish the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) clear expectations for the implementation of President Donald J. Trump's Executive Order signed last week.

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The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting is a nonprofit, online newsroom offering investigative and enterprise coverage of agribusiness,big ag and related issues through data analysis, visualizations, in-depth reports and interactive web tools. Learn More »

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Search our database of state inspection reports of migrant worker housing below from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Texas and Wisconsin by camp name, owner name, or city and state where camp is located.

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Opinion

Opinion: Supreme Court ruling could make FOIA more opaque

By Dave Dickey / Big Ag Watch | April 10, 2019

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