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GRAPHIC: The Midwest sees an increase in female farmers
According to Census of Agriculture data, female producers in the Midwest grew by 4% between 2017 and 2022. Nationally, this rise was 1%. Across the country, an estimated 1,266,786 women are actively engaged in farming. Alaska experienced the most significant growth among women farmers nationwide, with 1,022 women farmers, up 21%. In contrast, Arizona experienced the largest decline, losing 2,151 women farmers, a 13% contraction.
Water’s worth: It sits beneath Nebraska’s farmland and has serious value. But who owns it?
This story was originally published by the Flatwater Free Press. The land John Childears farms near North Platte is sandy, not particularly fertile, less than ideal. But the value of his land largely lies beneath his feet: the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest in the world. Childears recently harvested...
Proposal would tax Minnesota farmers to help pay for cleanup of nitrate pollution
This story was originally published by the Star Tribune. A proposal to tax the fertilizer that farmers use to boost crop yields — in the hopes of treating nitrate pollution of water in southeastern Minnesota — passed its first test on Thursday in the House agriculture committee. “We’ve...
Report shows Oklahoma has fewer producers, but some counties had an increase of farmers and ranchers
This story was originally published by KOSU. The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture shows overall Oklahoma has fewer farmers and ranchers, but not every county saw a decrease in producers. USDA conducts a census of the nation’s farms and ranchers every five years. The report shows...
GRAPHIC: Midwest ranks 2nd for new and beginning farmers in the latest Agricultural Census
The number of farms in the U.S. has decreased recently — a situation federal officials termed a “wake-up call.” But more than a million farmers in the U.S. are now “new and beginning” farmers, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture. Southern states account for...
Why the Oklahoma Farm Bureau is fighting an effort to increase the state’s minimum wage
Tommy Salisbury’s 3,800-acre wheat, corn and cattle farm about 20 miles north of Tulsa relies on good weather, high commodity prices and the state’s $7.25 an hour minimum wage. His 39 employees receive different hourly rates, but if the minimum wage were more than doubled — which a...
Congress needs to review pesticide approval process
Let’s be honest. It is entirely fair to say that the Environmental Protection Agency has a checkered history when it comes to following its rules to register pesticides. EPA’s registration process determines whether a pesticide should enter the marketplace and whether approved pesticides will be classified as general use or restricted use. General use pesticides can be used by anyone while restricted use pesticides require a license because they are more dangerous.
The essential workers missing from the farm bill
This article was originally published by FERN with media partner Mother Jones. Farm work has long been among the most dangerous jobs in America. But while Congress has had many chances to bolster labor protections in the 18 versions of the farm bill it has passed since 1933, it has instead largely ignored the needs of the workers who plant, tend, harvest, and process the nation’s food.
The farm bill hall of shame
This article was originally published by FERN with media partner Mother Jones. The farm bill is among the most important pieces of legislation that Congress is more or less obliged to pass. Yet to all but a handful of people whose job it is to parse its every incremental gain or loss, it is largely inscrutable. Every five years we’re treated to bitter fights over things like the use and abuse of agricultural subsidies; attempts to defund SNAP; the notion that environmental stewardship should guide farm policy as much as increasing production; and how (and sadly whether) to build equity into an agriculture system with a racist history.
GRAPHIC: In most major pork states, large hog farms have gotten larger
Almost every top hog producing state has seen an increase in the number of pigs raised on large farms in the past 20 years, according to an analysis of newly released Census of Agriculture data. Large farms include operations with at least 1,000 inventoried animals. The top producing pork states...
Oklahoma bill would shield poultry companies from lawsuits over chicken litter pollution
As Oklahoma wraps up a nearly 20-year lawsuit against several large poultry companies over chicken litter pollution in its eastern waterways, state lawmakers have advanced a bill to remove liability from companies in the future, giving them what environmentalists have called a “license to pollute.”. House Bill 4118, authored...
Massachusetts’ Question 3 is Big Meat’s stand-in to kill California’s Prop 12
The Lindy effect is a statistical tendency suggesting the older a non-perishable item is, the longer it’s likely to be around in the future. The longer something’s been around the longer it’ll be around. Check!. Which suggests a corollary. If it ain’t around, it can’t stay around....
‘A race to the bottom’: Indiana wetlands bill could affect Mississippi River, Great Lakes
Millions of acres of wetlands across the country lost protections that existed under the Clean Water Act after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year left it up to states to decide the extent of wetlands protection. Conservation groups and water policy experts feared that the Sackett v. Environmental Protection...
Latest farm data a ‘wake-up call’ as Midwest farmers face ever steeper challenges
Zemua Baptista had dreamed his whole life of becoming a farmer. In late 2019, while still in college, he was able to get a contract and a beginning farmer loan to build eight chicken houses to raise broiler chickens. Eventually, the first-generation farmer’s birds are sold as rotisserie chickens at Costco stores.
Spending on environmental lobbying on the rise during Biden administration
This story was originally published by OpenSecrets. Environmental groups spent over $30 million on federal lobbying in 2023, more than in any other year but far less than the oil and gas industry, according to federal lobbying disclosures reviewed by OpenSecrets. While President Joe Biden passed the largest clean energy...
Dead smoke alarms, moldy rooms, empty first aid kits: Farmworkers endure unsafe and substandard housing across US
* Farmworkers often endure poor fire prevention, such as dead smoke alarms, empty or missing fire extinguishers, and, in some cases, blocked emergency exits. In at least one instance, questions about smoke alarms working were raised after an employer-provided dwelling burned down. * Leaks, contributing to mold or mildew, were...
GRAPHIC: Women are a growing share of farmworkers
Women make up more than a quarter of all U.S. farmworkers, an increase of more than 55% over the past decade. Women accounted for 28.1% of farmworkers in 2021, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service division. In 2009, the rate of women farmworkers was less than 19%.
Cancer-related diseases and deaths spur actions to fight farm chemical contamination in Corn Belt
Articles in this project are edited by Carey Gillam, managing editor of The New Lede. When directors of the public water utility in Des Moines, Iowa, went to court in 2015 to try to stop toxic farm nutrients from contaminating the city’s drinking water, they knew the federal lawsuit they filed would be seen as not just a desperate step to protect public health, but also an act of defiance that would provoke a ferocious response from Iowa’s powerful farm and political leadership.
The extractive industries filling public university coffers on stolen land
This story was originally published by Grist. Alina Sierra needs $6,405. In 2022, the 19-year-old Tohono O’odham student was accepted to the University of Arizona, her dream school, and excited to become the first in her family to go to college. Her godfather used to take her to the...
Renewed legislation aims to safeguard Mississippi River amid growing environmental concerns
A proposal to create a federal funding program to protect the Mississippi River is back in front of Congress. Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin announced Wednesday that she plans to introduce the Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience Initiative in the Senate. Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota will bring the same bill forward in the House.
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