Fed auditors doubt ag trade programs’ impact
Throughout the past decade, the United States government has given agriculture groups billions of dollars to pay for things like grocery-store displays for grapes in Mexico and tradeshows for hardwoods...
View ArticleFood safety officials tweak Salmonella testing process
The Food Safety and Inspection Service announced changes to the process it uses to detect Salmonella in ground beef. The changes apply to the methods used to determine which facilities will be tested,...
View ArticleNew report criticizes EPA pesticide registration process
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources / FlickrMachinery sprays pesticide on rows of Christmas trees at a tree farm near Wautoma, Wis. A new government report found that the Environmental Protection...
View ArticlePrevented planting programs overpay farmers half a billion dollars
Danielle Sheppard/Midwest Center for Investigative ReportingPrevented planting compensates farmers when they're unable to plant an insured crop due to weather. The Risk Management Agency set prevented...
View ArticleCrop yields may curb insurance payments to Midwest farmers
Photo by Darrell Hoemann/Midwest Center for Investigative ReportingHarvest starts at the Anderson Farm near Mansfield, Ill., on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2013. This year, some analysts said, crop yields will...
View ArticleFarmers prefer ‘RP’ insurance
Revenue protection (RP) policies account for almost all of the crop insurance policies sold to Illinois corn farmers. In fact, nearly 6,000 of the 7,000 insurance policies Illinois corn farmers bought...
View ArticleModern meth production means less worry for farmers
The number of methamphetamine labs in central Illinois is on the rise, according to Illinois State Police records. And in past years, that would mean farmers and agriculture producers would have to...
View ArticleA tale of one meth lab
Beginning in June 2012, drug task force agents tracked 78 occasions when people who had recently purchased pseudoephedrine arrived at Tena Logan's residence in Loxa, Ill., according to a written...
View ArticleTwo decades of meth use
Michael Pasley first used meth in his early teens. Two decades later, his use came to a quick end when he was arrested April 5, 2010, in Mattoon, Ill. The arrest came after he spent 22 straight days...
View ArticleMeth use on the rise again in Illinois
Photo by Darrell Hoemann/Midwest Center for Investigative ReportingVermilion County Sheriff's Deputy Patrick Alblinger and Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Mike Atkinson (right) talk about the area's...
View ArticleSettlement reached in California ‘downer cattle’ case
Former beef suppliers to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program agreed in late November to a $155 million dollar final judgment to settle allegations of mistreating cows...
View ArticleUSDA seeks insight on irrigation practices
Agriculture producers have until Feb. 10 to respond to a mandatory U.S. Department of Agriculture survey focused on how farmers and ranchers throughout the country use their water. The survey –...
View ArticleLack of review of the Beef Board management leads to complex relationships
Investigators looking into the practices of the Agricultural Marketing Service found a lack of management reviews of the "Beef Board" operations unless a complaint or issue "arose". The lack of a...
View ArticleLand Values report due to be released this week; trend shows continued...
The United States Department of Agriculture is set to release the 2013 report of agricultural land values on August 2. If trends continue as they have been for the past 10 years, then the value of...
View ArticleFarm land values continue to climb
The average value for farm real estate climbed 9.4 percent from 2012, according to the 2013 Land Value Summary released late last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At $6,400 per acre, the...
View ArticleGAO Report: changes needed if key EPA program is to help fulfill the nation’s...
In December of 2013, the Government Accountability Office released a report that highlighted a flawed Environmental Protection Agency water-conservation program. It also summarized the overall state of...
View ArticleOIG Report: USDA paid billions in improper payments
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported an estimated $6.2 billion in improper payments in 2013, according to an Office of Inspector General’s April report. An OIG audit found $416 million in...
View ArticleNational Climate Assessment: White House assessment warns that climate change...
Warmer temperatures and extreme weather will threaten U.S. food security, a 1,300-page executive-branch assessment on climate change released in May found. Accordingly, federal crop insurance programs...
View ArticleGAO report on freshwater: supply concerns continue and uncertainties...
In May, the Government Accountability Office released a report that looked at U.S. freshwater availability. The report found that, since an earlier investigation in 2003, the state of the water supply...
View ArticleFarm Bill lobbying interests
As part of a project with Harvest Public Media, the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting analyzed electronic federal lobbying reports to get a closer look at which special interests lobbied on...
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