The Color of Water
Co-published with The Nation. In one of the richest agricultural areas in the world, residents of California’s colonias still don’t have access to clean running water.
Is It Time to Break Up Big Ag?
Co-published with The New Yorker. Renewed attention to antitrust has been focussed on Big Tech, but concentration in agriculture may be an underlying source of rural America’s pro-Trump political backlash.
A Mega-Dairy Is Transforming Arizona’s Aquifer and Farming Lifestyles
Co-published with High Country News. Minnesota’s Riverview Dairy has deep pockets and long straws.
Mega-Dairies, Disappearing Wells, and Arizona’s Deepening Water Crisis
Co-published with The Guardian. When wells run dry in the Willcox basin those who can afford to just dig deeper – leaving homes high and dry as the aquifer is drained.
‘There Are Ghosts in the Land’: How U.S. Mega-Dairies Are Killing off Small Farms
Co-published with The Guardian. A collapse in the number of dairy farmers in states such as Minnesota is destroying livelihoods and hollowing out rural life.
Housing Is a Right. During a Pandemic, It’s Also a Fight.
Co-published with The Nation. In California’s agricultural heartland, farmworkers are fighting back against expensive rents, substandard housing, and economic disenfranchisement.
‘We wanted to work the land with our kids’: the Black US farmers reclaiming the soil
Co-published with The Guardian. A fledgling movement towards Black-owned farms seeks to address the lack of land ownership and fresh food in many communities of color.
The New York Farmers Responding to Food Insecurity
Co-published with Civil Eats. Small-scale farmers in Ithaca respond to hunger through nimbleness, innovation, and mutualism. If the recently introduced FEED Act passes Congress, the model could spread nationwide.
Trump’s Online SNAP Program Helps Amazon and Walmart, But Leaves Rural People Behind
Co-published with In These Times. The government’s online food assistance program doesn’t include independent grocers and ignores the gaps in rural infrastructure.
Ranching Life on the High Plains of Montana
Co-published with The Guardian. Elliott D. Woods spent time in Phillips County in northern Montana, where public land is a source of life to which ranchers are intimately connected. If the plan to transfer lands to the
In Montana, Land Transfer Threatens the American Rancher’s Way of Life
Co-published with The Guardian and Mountain Outlaw Magazine. Ranchers in the west have been struggling for decades. Now a new threat looms: public land might be taken away from them
The Hidden Poverty in Marijuana’s Black Market
Co-published with Huffington Post with additional support from Capital & Main. Photography by Talia Herman. As the timber industry collapsed, one Northern California town turned to marijuana.