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Government

New lobbying group launched to protect farmers from consolidation, big agribusiness

By Johnathan Hettinger/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting | September 25, 2017

A former lieutenant governor of Missouri is now leading a new lobbying group seeking to give farmers more influence in Washington D.C.

OSHA and USDA waited months into pandemic to coordinate effort into COVID-19 crisis in meatpacking plants, emails show

OSHA and USDA waited until April of last year — more than three months into the pandemic and after a plant shut down because workers fell ill — to plan a response to the rising number of COVID-19 cases at meatpacking plants, according to emails obtained by Public Citizen.

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

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

The Trump Administration told an Illinois health department to leave Rochelle Foods alone. Then a second COVID-19 outbreak struck the plant.

A May 1 conference call with federal, state and local health officials sent one message: Despite a COVID-19 outbreak amongst it workers, Rochelle Foods was to remain open. This fall, a second outbreak at the plant wasn’t publicly reported.

‘They think workers are like dogs.’ How pork plant execs sacrificed safety for profits.

From City Hall to the White House, our investigation found, officials let Triumph Foods stay open as hundreds of workers got coronavirus. Four died.

Opinion

Opinion: Big Meat must provide transparency for COVID response

Well, times are changing, and Big-Meat won't be able to be so caviler to the shiny new House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis chaired by U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn. The South Carolina Democrat wasted no time after his appointment to demand Big-Meat to account for its COVID response.

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Rural America

Farmers already felt isolated. The COVID-19 pandemic made it worse.

When COVID-19 first hit, Illinois farmers Adrienne and Drew DeSutter weren’t sure how the pandemic would affect their lives. Farmers already deal with a lot of uncertainty and lead isolated lives, they said.

From the USDA

FACT SHEET: Update on USDA Activities to Contain the COVID-19 Pandemic

USDA Deploys 301 Disaster, Public Health Specialists to Assist with Federal Response WASHINGTON, Feb. 17, 2021 -- In January 2021, President Biden released the National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness.

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

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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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