farmers

“It tears you apart mentally and physically”: The Health Crisis Afflicting Black Farmers

At 43 and 45 years old, husband and wife farmers Angie and Wenceslaus Provost, Jr., hope they live to see age 70.  They don’t fear terminal illness or a farm accident that could consign them to an early grave.  Instead, they fear stress could do them in. Years of trying to protect family land from encroaching banks and government agencies have worn …

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A Wisconsin Hog Farm Would Produce 9.4 Million Gallons of Manure a Year. Nearby Residents Live in Fear.

Crawford County is up against Roth Feeder Pig II, which would be the largest hog CAFO in the state and could permanently pollute local aquifers. CRAWFORD COUNTY, WIS.?—?When a neighbor tells Carl Schlecht and Kat Tigerman about an industrial hog farm planning construction on the narrow ridge above their home, they think it’s a joke. The retired …

A Wisconsin Hog Farm Would Produce 9.4 Million Gallons of Manure a Year. Nearby Residents Live in Fear. Read More »

Why Climate Plans Must Include Farmers of Color

Proposed legislation would give farms resources to fight climate change. Will farmers of color get equal access? Marvin Frink looks out at his Black Angus cattle farm as the sun is coming up and ponders what’s on the horizon. He and his wife Tanisha started Briarwood Cattle Farm in Raeford, N.C. 10 years ago after Marvin was …

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Foreign Farm Workers Already Face Abusive Conditions. Now Trump Wants to Cut Their Wages.

Pedro, a laborer from Chiapas, Mexico, worked 13 hours a day picking blueberries on a farm in Clinton, North Carolina. He had no time off, except when it rained. “We had no Sundays,” Pedro (a pseudonym to protect his identity after he breached his visa agreement) says in Spanish. Working from May to June under …

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Soaring summer temperatures mean danger for farm workers

Summer means high temperatures … and, for farmworkers, hard work in hot fields. We’re talking fields where, without proper precautions, workers die from the heat. The United Farm Workers is trying to keep that from happening, though in some states they have better options than others. California, where so much of the nation’s produce is grown, has laws protecting …

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Trump targets USDA with some of the deepest proposed budget cuts

President Donald Trump ran on a platform of giving a voice to rural voters who felt forgotten by politicians in Washington. But his proposed budget, released on Tuesday, proposes deep cuts to crucial Department of Agriculture programs that many rural residents, and farmers, depend on. The budget proposes an almost 21 percent cut to the USDA, the third-largest percentage …

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Madeline Messa

Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.