Harvest Public Media
Harvest Public Media is a reporting collaboration focused on issues of food, fuel and field. Based at KCUR in Kansas City, Harvest covers these agriculture-related topics through an expanding network of reporters and partner stations throughout the Midwest. Global demand for food and fuel is rising, and the push and pull for resources has serious ramifications for our country’s economic prosperity. What’s more, we all eat, so we all have a stake in how our food is produced In the Midwest, in particular, today’s emerging agenda for agriculture is headlined by climate change, food safety, biofuel production, animal welfare, water quality, and sustainability. By examining these local, regional and national issues and their implications with in-depth and unbiased reporting, Harvest is filling a critical information void. Most Harvest Public Media stories begin with radio — regular reports are aired on our member stations in the Midwest. But Harvest also explores issues through online analyses, television documentaries and features, podcasts, photography, video, blogs and social networking. We are committed to the highest journalistic standards. Click here to read our ethics policy.
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In Kansas, the average winter temperature is about 4 degrees warmer than it was in 1970. That’s also true for Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa, and farmers are starting to feel the effects.
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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.
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TIAA-CREF invests heavily in farmland, so it paid a university to research it.
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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.
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The pandemic, wildfires, supply chain issues and U.S. trade policy have exposed fault lines in the nation’s meat supply. Now, some ranchers in western Nebraska have decided to build their own beef processing plant to process as many as 1,500 cattle a day.
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Agriculture is responsible for more than 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and some in the industry are looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint. One of those efforts is replacing the kind of crushed rock farmers use to neutralize their soil’s acidity, from limestone to basalt.
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Tyson and Perdue Farms have agreeded to pay a total of $35.75 million to broiler chicken farmers to settle a class action lawsuit. It’s part of a larger antitrust lawsuit involving some of the country’s largest chicken processors, including Pilgrim’s Pride, Sanderson Farms and Koch Foods.
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Rural areas are often the last to receive broadband. The lack of broadband is similar to another issue that rural communities faced decades ago, rural electrification.
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In the 1990s, Black farmers won a $1 billion lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But now, some are saying the settlement did not punish the people who have engaged in systemic discrimination against Blacks in agriculture for decades.
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Corn has evolved to expect hot, sunny days and dark, cool summer nights but a changing climate means the crop is struggling to adapt.