Mississippi River Basin: Ag & Water Desk
The Ag & Water Desk team is made up of ten partner news organizations: Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, Madison, WI; the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, Champaign, IL; The Courier-Journal, Louisville, KY; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee, WI; The Daily Memphian, Memphis, TN; Northern Public Radio – WNIJ, DeKalb, IL; Harvest Public Media, Kansas City, MO; Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN; The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, IA; and The Lens in New Orleans, LA. Each news outlet applied to be part of the project through Report for America. Each outlet has hired one reporter to participate as a member of the Ag & Water Desk.
Additionally, the desk has five expert journalists and two senior advisors based at the following outlets: Inside Climate News, Washington, D.C.; The St. Louis Post Dispatch, St. Louis; DTN/The Progressive Farmer; the Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis; WWNO, New Orleans Public Radio, New Orleans and The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate | NOLA.com, New Orleans.
-
Seas of corn and wheat stretch out across the High Plains, but a huge portion of those fields used to be native grassland. To conserve what’s left, a new program will work with ranchers, and it’s backed by some of the biggest beef buyers like Burger King.
-
Aging farmers and fewer farms in the new agriculture census should be a 'wake up call,' says VilsackThe average farmer in the U.S. is now 58 years old, according to the Census of Agriculture, released Tuesday. There are also fewer farms in the country than there were in the last census.
-
As the number of wind and solar farms increases, so does opposition in the rural areas where they’re being built. While more counties and townships passed restrictions in the last year, some states are responding by passing laws making it harder for local governments to say no to wind and solar.
-
Winter tends to be the cloudiest part of the year, but data shows there were more overcast days than usual in parts of the region.
-
Thousands of miles of oil and natural gas pipelines already crisscross the country. Now, many more are being proposed to carry things like hydrogen and carbon dioxide as ways to combat climate change.
-
“Brain drain,” the migration of people with a higher education degree, remains an issue in most of the Midwest and Great Plains. Recent U.S. Census data shows many states are losing some of their most educated residents.
-
Meteorologists and climatologists often have a tough job explaining climate change to the public, especially in places where audiences may be more skeptical of the science. In the Midwest and Great Plains, strong resistance has pushed some out of the field.
-
El Río Mississippi fluye apaciblemente debajo del Puente Centennial, que conecta Illinois e Iowa por las Quad Cities. Un sábado por la tarde a principios de mayo, los carros pasan y saludan o dan un bocinazo ocasional a una larga fila de ambientalistas que afirman que el río es un ser vivo.
-
Advocates from across the Mississippi River basin are calling for the Mississippi River to be granted legal rights.
-
A new study of the dramatic loss of wetlands in the Barataria Basin south of New Orleans during the last 130 years concludes that the two main causes have been construction of levees along the Mississippi River and subsidence due to oil and gas activity.