ByChristopher Walljasper/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting |
The USDA has announced plans for a pilot program to bring broadband internet to all of rural America. The plan, which Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue calls a “proof of concept,” will provide $600 million dollars in grants and loans to internet service providers to bring connection to parts of the country that are too remote, underpopulated or expensive to serve. “I absolutely, unequivocally believe that broadband connectivity is part of rural prosperity,” said Perdue in a press conference on Dec. 13. “We don’t want an urban rural divide in this country.
ByChristopher Walljasper/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting |
America has lost millions of acres of farmland over the nearly three decades to urban and rural development. Despite conservation efforts by state and local governments and increased financial incentives for farmers, urban development and the expansion of rural residential real estate over the last 25 years has eliminated farmland across the country at levels not seen since the early 1970s.
ByChristopher Walljasper/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting |
Driving along Route 47 in Kane County, Illinois, corn and soybean fields are dotted with signs advertising the amenities of burgeoning communities. For more than 20 years, Kane County has been a poster child for urban sprawl, the spreading of development of land on the edge of a metropolitan area.
Small family-run farms that raise organically, without genetically modifying crops or by reducing their use of pesticides and antibiotics, are such a small part of the federal government’s definition of a family farm that they often are lost in the crowd when it comes to government and industry support.
ByKaolin Sewell/The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting |
Once every five years, the farm bill reauthorizes farm and nutrition programs nationwide, covering programs such as healthy food access for low-income Americans and protecting our environment. A conference committee is working on a new one.
Consumer advocates are attacking a bill heading for a vote soon in the U.S. Senate that would clear legal obstacles for the deployment of driverless cars — a proposal that, critics say, lacks safeguards needed to protect the public and largely would let vehicle manufacturers regulate themselves. A special report from Fairwarning.org.
Rural Iowa is facing several challenges, notably as its population grew a little more than 4 percent from 2000 to 2010, while the rest of the nation grew a little less than 10 percent during that same time. These challenges are being addressed in several ways, as we learn in this IowaWatch podcast.
The Justice Department announced a 22-count indictment Thursday against a Nebraska railroad services company and its owners related to an April 2015 explosion that killed two workers and seriously injured a third.
Briana Reha-Klenske starts helping migrant farmworkers lacking insurance who need medical care by asking: for how long are you in Iowa? A bilingual health care manager, her patients are migrant farmworkers who are only in Iowa during the summers, which limits her ability to help.
ByJohnathan Hettinger/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting |
As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prepared to make label changes for the herbicide dicamba after it caused widespread crop damage, the agency depended on the herbicide’s maker for guidance, documents produced in a federal lawsuit show. A review of more than 800 pages of documents from a lawsuit filed against the U.S. EPA in January 2017 highlight the process behind how the agency made the label changes. The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, the National Family Farm Coalition and the Pesticide Action Network North America in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. DV.load(“https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4617973-17-70196-Opening-Brief.js”, {
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17 70196 Opening Brief (PDF)
17 70196 Opening Brief (Text)
The lawsuit alleges the agency unlawfully approved a version of dicamba made by Monsanto. It spent a year in discovery before plaintiffs’ filed a brief in February outlining their argument.
ByChristopher Walljasper/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting |
From 2011 to 2017, the United States saw more than 1,400 new large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) established. That’s up 7.6 percent, this Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting story tells you.
