This story was originally published by Investigate Midwest. When the wind shifts and Abbie Frank smells chemicals in the air, she begins her two-minute drill: grab the children and their backpacks and head to the schoolhouse as quickly as possible. Frank, the founder and executive director of Bluestem Hall Nature School in Urbana, Illinois, said […]
Jennifer Bamberg, Investigate Midwest
Posted inNews
Threat of ICE raids shadows every shift in Chicago’s food warehouses
This story is supported by funding from the Chicago Region Food Systems Fund. Each day before sunrise, David Huerta checks his rearview mirror for immigration enforcement agents as he drives through the dark to a warehouse in a southwest Chicago suburb. Once he’s clocked in, he peers periodically through the windows on the truck dock, […]
Posted inOpinion
Food reform failure
M.J. Kellner’s royal blue and golden yellow semitrucks are a common sight throughout central Illinois. Every week, the wholesale food company delivers thousands of pounds of grocery items to state-owned facilities, including prisons, mental health centers, rehabilitation institutions and veterans’ homes. The company boasts that many of its customers are within a 100-mile radius of […]
Posted inOpinion
Illinois governor moves to slash cover crop funds despite rising demand
When Steve Stierwalt studied agriculture at the University of Illinois in the 1970s, soil health wasn’t commonly taught or discussed. Faculty often told their young farming students to put all their faith in commercial fertilizers. But over his 40 years as a corn and soybean farmer in Champaign County, Stierwalt said soil erosion, which can […]
Posted inOpinion
Illinois lawmakers weigh carbon capture regulations
Nestled along the curves of the Illinois River just outside the town of Hennepin is the country’s largest dry-mill ethanol plant, where a network of pipes, grain elevators and exhaust towers rise like a mini-city. Surrounding the plant are hundreds of acres of corn, the state’s top crop often used to make ethanol fuel. The […]
Posted inOpinion
Farmers want the right to fix their tractors
During the 2023 harvest season, one of Jake Lieb’s tractors quit working. A week later, his combine stopped working, too. Both were new – and he was locked out from making any repairs himself because of software restrictions embedded in the machines. Instead, a technician from John Deere was dispatched to diagnose and repair the […]
