URBANA — A new study suggests the notion of clean, country air might be misleading. Traditionally, air quality has been measured by the size of pollution particles or, more scientifically, particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less. Considered that way, urban air tends to be more polluted than rural air because the…
HOUSTON, Mo. — A town of 1,000 people feels like a rural place to someone from Chicago. To a person living in a town of 200 people, that population of 1,000 feels almost urban. But what the government defines as rural determines tens of billions of dollars a year in spending aimed at propping up…
A new U.S. Department of Agriculture report found the percentage of farms that are small and family owned remained unchanged from 2011 to 2020, holding steady at 89% of all farms. A new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows the percentage of farms that are small and family-owned remains steady, but they produce…
URBANA – U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm stopped in Urbana on Thursday as part of her two-day tour of Illinois energy facilities. She listened carefully as researchers at the university’s Integrated Bioprocessing Research Laboratory described how they turn sugar cane into fuel. “What today is about is seeing what the opportunities are and building…
Two proposals for carbon pipelines throughout the Midwest would pipe carbon dioxide from dozens of ethanol plants to rock formations in North Dakota and Illinois where the CO2 would be buried deep underground. Rock formations like the Mount Simon Sandstone offer the ability to bury the carbon for “eons of time” more than a mile…
ROLLA, Mo. — Chris Brundick looks at a few inches of water running through a low lying strip of land on his 450 acres in south central Missouri and sees a ditch. “This is hardly a creek, and this, in my opinion, should not be classified as a Water of the U.S.,” Brundick said. The…
The Midwest saw a record rise in the number of agricultural guest workers this year helping out on farms, in meatpacking plants and with landscaping companies. That jump fits with a national trend. The Department of Labor says the U.S. let in a record number of H-2A visa workers this year. Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas…
From Iowa to Oklahoma to Kansas, universities are working more closely with agribusiness in search of ways to pay for projects where tax dollars have become more scarce. Critics worry that agriculture schools might focus more on industry than the public interest. Read Part I and Part II of this series. AMES, IOWA — Iowa…
TIAA-CREF invests heavily in farmland, so it paid a university to research it. Read Part I and Part III of this series. CHAMPAIGN — In 2013, mammoth U.S. investment company TIAA-CREF gave $5 million to the University of Illinois — to study an area of investment where the company has made a, sometimes controversial, name…
Large donors can put universities in potentially awkward positions when faculty conclusions conflict with the interests of those benefactors. Data collected by Harvest Public Media and Investigate Midwest show corporations have given at least $170 million to ag colleges in the past decade. Read Part II and Part III of this series. CHAMPAIGN — A major donor to the…
Making a Thanksgiving feast will cost more this year as the pandemic’s effect on the economy drives up food prices. Even economists like Curtis Dubay at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce notice the difference at the grocery store. “We’re spending roughly $25 to $50 more per week on groceries for a family of five,” Dubary…
Ranchers in Nebraska are rebelling against the “Big Four” meat companies by planning their own beef processing plant. They’re seeking a transformation for themselves, the industry and western Nebraska. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s60/audio/2021/11/beefplantwebfin.mp3 Plans to disrupt the Nebraska beef industry began in Hanoi, Vietnam. Rancher Rusty Kemp was on a 2019 trade trip with Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts….
This is the second of a two-part series looking at what meatpacking has meant for southwest Kansas. Click here to read the first part. GARDEN CITY, Kansas — Outside an old, white two-story house in downtown Garden City, dozens of people stand in a loose row that spills out of the driveway and onto the…
MORTON — The great pumpkin shortage of 2021 is turning out to be as real as Linus’ Great Pumpkin. Neither ever showed. Instead, despite some national headlines about a pumpkin shortage this year, Midwestern farmers say there’s nothing to worry about. “God granted us quite a bounty this year,” says John Ackerman, who grows pumpkins…
GIBSON CITY – In August, nine inches of rain dumped on one of Randy Aberle’s fields of corn and soybeans near Gibson City, Illinois. “We had some areas in those fields that the water was four feet deep,” he says. Luckily, he says, those fields have enough slope that the water drained off within a…