Longtime readers of this column know at year’s end I pick what I believe is the top agricultural story. But 2025 is different. The top ag story isn’t singular, but rather deals with the contentious ...

Starting in 2020, consumers faced skyrocketing grocery store prices. A few factors were at play. The COVID-19 pandemic tied supply chains into knots. An outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza ...

Investigate Midwest is a data-centric newsroom. Our weekly Data Harvests aim to visualize key agricultural statistics, and our investigative stories are often rooted in original data analysis. Of the ...

Residents of the United States and Europe have increasingly eaten more meat since 1960, but the two regions’ meat consumption ...

These photos document the year’s most defining agriculture and labor stories, from wind farm projects and rising land values near Walmart’s headquarters to poultry farm expansion, Chicago’s food ...

From a new presidential administration and sweeping changes at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to the world’s largest retailer entering the beef industry and unchecked water use by a giant poultry ...

Tyler Stafslien is a fourth-generation farmer who’s worked his family’s land in central North Dakota for about 20 years.

The nation’s cattle inventory is at its lowest level in decades, the result of a long-term decline that has been pushed even lower in recent years by drought. Much of the country endured severe dry ...

More than 700 Illinois schools are within a quarter-mile of crop fields, yet state law doesn’t require pesticide applicators to notify them before spraying. Advocates say a new notification proposal ...

This month, President Trump directed the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the nation’s largest meatpacking companies for potential collusion and price fixing. “Action must be taken ...

The Renewable Fuel Standard, passed in the mid 2000s, requires that gasoline be blended with ethanol, which in the United States comes almost entirely from corn. That mandate drives up demand and ...

This story was produced in partnership with ArtDesk, published by the Kirkpatrick Foundation. The Kirkpatrick Foundation is also a donor to Investigate Midwest. Oklahoma lawmakers have passed measures ...