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Midwest maple syrup producers adapt to record-warm winter, uncertainty in face of changing climate
The art of maple syrup production flows through generations of Dan Potter’s family history. His great-grandfather bought the family farm in rural Iowa in the late 1880s and cleared the land for strawberries, clay and whiskey production. Eventually, he transitioned to making maple syrup to add to his whiskey. That started a 140-year-old tradition that has persisted through the Civil War, the Great Depression and both world wars.
Tribal nations want more control over their food supply
This story was originally published by the Food and Energy Reporting Network and Mother Jones. For years, the Oneida Nation has been growing crops and raising cattle and buffalo on its 65,000-acre reservation near Green Bay, Wisconsin. Now, some of that food is doing more than nourishing people: It’s helping undo centuries of government overreach. As part of a pilot program included in the 2018 farm bill, the tribe is using federal dollars to buy food grown on the reservation and by other nearby Native producers and distributing it for free to low-income members of its tribe and another, the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin.
Farmers face a precarious future. Is the Farm Bureau on their side?
This story was originally published by Barn Raiser. Throughout the American Farm Bureau Federation’s 105th annual national convention in Salt Lake City this year, organizers projected a video on the big screen of the main presentation room beckoning viewers to “new frontiers” in American agriculture. One clip showed a farmer surrounded by his children as he described the next frontier as a return to the “old” frontier — what he described as restoring the “rural, family values” that “made America great.”
Farmworker advocates take issue with U.S. House ag committee recommendations on H-2A program
In response to the agriculture industry declaring a growing labor shortage, the U.S. House Agriculture Committee released a report on the H-2A guest worker program that outlines 20 specific recommendations. The recommendations, detailed in a 23-page report released on March 7 by the committee’s Agricultural Labor Working Group, promise to...
GRAPHIC: Major dairy states see 30% decrease in female producers
From 2017 to 2022, the top five states with the largest dollar value for dairy products saw a third of its female dairy producers leave the industry. This trend matches the national decline in female dairy producers, according to Census of Agriculture data. California, Wisconsin, Idaho, Texas and New York...
Farmers should beware a second Trump term
In his 1905 tome, “The Life of Reason,” philosopher George Santayana wrote:. “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement, and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
USDA will implement long-awaited change to country-of-origin labeling rules
This story was originally published by The Daily Yonder. A long-awaited rule that changes which meat and poultry goods can bear the label “Product of U.S.A.” will give consumers better information and result in fairer compensation for U.S. farmers and ranchers, agriculture experts predict. “We will see profits...
Bill calls for $2 million annually to shore up local food supply chains
Nineteen local farms will receive a combined $1.8 million in grants to fund infrastructure projects aimed at developing their ability to produce and distribute food around the state as part of the Local Food and Infrastructure Grant Program. The grants come from the Illinois Department of Agriculture’s budget but are...
Investigate Midwest, Flatwater Free Press stories on Nebraska governor recognized with SABEW award
In 2023, Investigate Midwest and Flatwater Free Press teamed up to take a critical look at Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen. The work received a top business reporting award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. “This collaboration resulted in important public service journalism,” said Erin Orr, Investigate Midwest’s...
Ice cover on the upper Mississippi River was fleeting this winter. Is this our future?
Anthony Larson describes himself as a hard-core ice fisher. Living in La Crosse, Wisconsin, right next to the Mississippi River, he has the luxury to fulfill that description. Once the river and its backwaters ice over each winter, he aims to fish every day, using his work commute to scope out particular spots he wants to hit. Even if all he can spare at the end of the day is 15 or 20 minutes, he goes for it.
New report sparks questions and controversy over possible causes for Iowa ‘cancer crisis’
This story was originally published by The New Lede. Amid increasing scrutiny of a potential link between agricultural chemicals and cancer, a new report is generating controversy as it blames rising rates not on the toxins used widely throughout the state, but on something else entirely: binge alcohol consumption. The...
GRAPHIC: Ports in New Orleans and the Northwest account for most agricultural export traffic
Around 20% of U.S. agriculture products are exported to other countries, making the nation’s seaports a critical part of the crop and meat industries. Soybeans and grain are the most significant agricultural exports at more than 58 million tons combined, according to the USDA’s “U.S. Agricultural Port Profiles” report from 2023.
Droughts, complicated by climate change, result in US beef herd hitting historic low
* More intense droughts have led to less pasture land, forcing some ranchers to spend more on feed. One rancher in Nebraska said she sourced feed from more than 500 miles away. * The size of the U.S.'s cattle herd has decreased since 1975, but it recently hit a historic...
Ag appropriation riders? What riders?
For the past six months or so a handful of hard-far-right Republicans in the U.S. House has attempted to attach a number of, putting it mildly, controversial riders to the 2024 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and related Agencies Appropriations Act. Even a partial list reveals a mindset...
GRAPHIC: Historic droughts impact global agriculture shipping industry
The Panama Canal is a crucial component in U.S. agricultural exports, valued at nearly $200 billion annually. Grains such as corn and soybeans are among the country’s top exported commodities, and rely on a global shipping industry, which is becoming increasingly vulnerable to geopolitical instability and climate change. However,...
How AI and satellites can detect illegal manure spreading
* Applying manure atop snow or frozen soil heightens the risk of runoff, which can contaminate water, spread pathogens, seed algae blooms, and kill fish. * Stanford University researchers are using aerial photographs — snapped by satellites orbiting the globe — to teach computers to recognize winter spreading.
Midwest journalists to share their ‘inside scoops’ at April 12 Iowa City event
Iowans are invited to enjoy stories from the careers of some longtime journalists while sipping cocktails, noshing delicious food and browsing a silent auction. The Friday, April 12, event “Inside Scoop: The Story Behind the Story” will support reporting by the IowaWatch newsroom of Investigate Midwest. Get tickets here.
With California’s Prop 12 now law, pork producers adapt while lobbying groups continue to fight
In 2021, two years before California enacted new hog confinement standards for pork to be sold within its borders, Seaboard Foods said it would “no longer sell certain whole pork products” in the state. Passed in 2018, California’s Farm Animal Confinement Initiative, often referred to as Proposition 12,...
Beginning farmers in the US need all the help they can get
The recently released 2022 Census on Agriculture, a five-year snapshot on the state of the U.S. agriculture industry, was well … rather depressing. The report is the government’s most detailed and comprehensive look at America’s farms and ranchers with granular data down to the county level. The...
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