Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/tag/farm/)
As part of an effort to better cover crucial issues in the agricultural industry, Investigate Midwest has acquired IowaWatch and its talented team, bringing together a combined 25 years of public service journalism to Iowa and the Midwest.
In agriculture, when a lack of rain combines with very high temperatures and sunny days, the rapid dryness is called a “flash drought.” Well, this economic downturn related to fears about the coronavirus pandemic could be a flash recession, said Scott Irwin, an agricultural economics professor at the University of Illinois. Irwin, along with four other professors from the University of Illinois Agricultural and Consumer Economics department, addressed how the coronavirus pandemic could affect agriculture in the Midwest in a webinar on Friday.
Every day, tasks on a farm carry the risk of injury or death. Tractors tip over and crush the operator. Farmers drown in grain silos. Grain augers tear off limbs. Heads are scalped when hair gets caught in spinning tractor parts.
For the second time in recent months, the U.S. Department of Labor has extracted penalties from a California farm business blamed for the deadly crash of a vehicle transporting migrant field workers to their jobs.
The largest federal farm payments were disproportionately paid to farm operations primarily made up of managers, or those who did not actively work on the farm, according to a new government watchdog report released in May. Farm investors and managers received nearly $260 million in U.S. Department of Agriculture subsidy payments in 2015, the Government Accountability Office reported. The top 19 operations receiving farm subsidies in 2015 had an average of nine managers receiving payments.
Steve Morris, Director of Natural Resources and Environment for the GAO, said a trend identified in 2013 is still evident in the 2015 data. “When you look at the definition of ‘actively engaged’ and how that’s breaking out, I think some of those patterns remain consistent,” he said.
A two-year investigation by the Midwest Center of Investigative Reporting found, Monsanto and its counterpart in GMO corn production, DuPont Pioneer, have faced repeated allegations of labor violations over the past decade related to a growing use of farm labor contractors.
Here's a look at some of the complaints.
The EPA’s proposed “Waters of the United States” rule would add to the Clean Water Act by defining whether a water body is – or is not – protected by the act. The public has until Oct. 20 to formally comment on the proposed rule. So far, the rule has received nearly 6,000 comments. Hundreds of others have chosen to discuss the rule through social media, as well.
Iowa’s small farms are on their own when it comes to work safety, even though farmers suffer more fatal occupational injuries than any other kind of worker in the state.
Limited Occupational Safety and Health Administration enforcement and coverage favors large farms, leaving the rest on an honors system in which dangerous farm practices fly under the radar until a serious, and often fatal, injury occurs.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is responsible for overseeing workplace safety, but the organization is handicapped when it comes to dealing with small farms and agriculture sites that handle grain.
OSHA’s federal guidelines prohibit it from enforcing regulations through inspections on both family farms and farms that employ fewer than 10 workers. Consequently, many places left vulnerable to grain-bin accidents are neglected.
In July, a 55-year-old man working for Premier Cooperative in Sidney, Ill., suffocated and died after becoming trapped in a grain bin filled with corn. His death marked the first grain-bin fatality for Illinois this year, but with expected large crop yields coming, more farmers may be at risk.