Our writing fellow offers his favorite stories of the year.
agriculture
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Lawsuit Highlights Why Meat Has Been Overpriced for 40 Years
Agri Stats lets meat processors coordinate their pricing. The Justice Department finally decided to go after what it calls collusion.
Posted inEnergy and the Environment
Big Ag Opens Another Vein of Public Funding
Money from the Climate-Smart Commodities program, designed to reduce agriculture emissions, is going disproportionately to multinationals.
Posted inWorking in America
Where Discrimination Flourished Like Mushrooms
Washington state fines a mushroom grower $3.4 million for firing women farmworkers and replacing them with male contract labor.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
How Washington Bargained Away Rural America
Every five years, the farm bill brings together Democrats and Republicans who are normally at each other’s throats. The result is the continued corporatization of agriculture.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Farmers Pay Big Ag to Lobby Against Them
The checkoff program, intended for marketing promotion but used as a slush fund for consolidated agricultural interests, is facing pressure for reform.
Posted inEconomic Policy
A Pitched Battle on Corporate Power
Biden’s expansive executive order seeks to restore competition in the economy. It’s been a long, slow road to get the whole government on board—but there are some formidable gains.
Posted inWorking in America
USDA Ignores Its Own Proposed Labor Standards
The department has yet to implement a rule requiring its contractors to obey labor laws.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
John Deere Says Farmers Can Fix Their Own Tractors—Sometimes
It cuts a deal with a farmers’ group to forestall legislation requiring it to stop compelling farmers to come to Deere for all their repairs.
Posted inTransportation
Rail Companies Can’t Handle Traffic From Mississippi River Drought
Low water levels have pushed shippers who typically use river barges to use freight rail. But decades of strangled capacity makes rail a bad bet, too.