Matters relating to agriculture, including farming and agribusiness.
Abigail Bobrow/For the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
Julie Pryde, administrator of the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, speaks at “Climate Change in Illinois: A community conversation”, sponsored by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, on Tuesday, November 29, at the Champaign Public Library.
“We’re actually at the warmest part for the historical record for Illinois,” said State Climatologist Jim Angel, speaking to a crowd of about 60 at the Champaign Public Library on Tuesday. “This is a different climate for what our parents, grandparents or great grandparents would’ve experienced in Illinois.”
July was the hottest month in recorded history. And continued increases in temperature and a shift in rain patterns could mean a 15 percent yield loss in the next five to 25 years and up to a 73 average yield loss by the end of the next century if farming patterns don’t change significantly, University of Illinois finance professors Don Fullerton and Julian Reif laid out in a report released from the Institute of Government and Public Affairs last year.
The way farmers use crop insurance has fundamentally changed — and that’s been costly for taxpayers.
Thanks to a drop in market volatility and grain prices, farmers may pay up to 10 percent less this year for crop insurance.
Photo by Darrell Hoemann/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
Workers rest outside at the Nightingale camp in Rantoul, Ill., after a day's work in July 2014. The migrant farmworker housing is located on the former Chanute Air Force Base. The Illinois Department of Public Health lists the camp’s maximum occupancy at 450 workers.
An ongoing investigation by The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting has found the oversight of migrant housing is a fractured and ineffective system despite decades of reforms.
State inspection records highlight substandard conditions inside eight migrant farmworker housing sites.
Hundreds of migrant workers come to the United States from Mexico and other countries with special H-2A farm visas, but they make up only a fraction of the total number of migrant farmworkers.
The state and local agencies responsible for overseeing migrant farmworker housing vary from state to state. Here's a detailed look at how oversight works in Missouri.
Darrell Hoemann
A central Illinois farmer harvests his crop shortly before sundown on Sept. 24, 2015. U.S. agricultural exports reached a record level in 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
A new trade deal aimed at cutting thousands of taxes and opening markets with 11 Pacific Rim nations has drawn heavy lobbying from some of America’s largest agribusinesses.
The deal – known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership – was reached in early October. It is designed to ease the flow of goods between partner nations by lowering restrictive trade policies and regulations.
Darrell Hoemann
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, middle, listens to a researchers on Sept. 10, 2015. Vilsack was visiting the Energy Farm just south of Urbana, Ill. From left: German Bollero, head of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's crop science department; Tim Mies, director of the Energy Farm; Robert Hauser, ACES dean; Patrick Brown, assistant professor in plant breeding and genetics
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced on Thursday that his department will award nearly two dozen states with millions of dollars to build the gas pumps and other infrastructure needed to supply American drivers with more renewable fuel.