Rural America
‘Buy It or Else’: How Monsanto and BASF Forced a Toxic Weed Killer on Farmers
Internal records show the companies knew crop damage from their weed killer would be extensive. They sold it anyway.
Johnathan Hettinger
Recognition of Native Treaty Rights Could Reshape the Environmental Landscape
The U.S. has largely ignored the nearly 400 treaties signed with tribal nations, but that may be starting to change. And some think that could prevent, or even reverse, environmental degradation.
Alex Brown
On Environment, Biden Needs to Do a Lot More than Roll Back the Rollbacks
President Trump gutted almost 100 environmental protections. Here’s a list of the ones Biden should undo first and why he must not stop there.
Jonathan Thompson
Regrowing Indigenous Agriculture Could Nourish People, Cultures and the Land
European settlement, government policies and monoculture have nearly eradicated Native American farming practices. A growing movement is reclaiming them.
Christina Gish Hill
Meatpacking Workers Say Attendance Policies Force Them to Work With Covid-19 Symptoms
As the pandemic rages, punitive attendance policies at corporate meat plants coerce sick workers into showing up, according to activists, experts and the workers themselves.
Heather Schlitz
Trump's Online SNAP Program Helps Amazon and Walmart, But Leaves Rural People Behind
The government's online food assistance program doesn’t include independent grocers and ignores the gaps in rural infrastructure.
Bryce Oates and Debbie Weingarten
How Right-Wing Groups Created an Atmosphere in which Kidnapping the Michigan Governor Made Sense
The alleged militia plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was only the most shocking episode in the campaign to undermine and politicize the state’s response to Covid-19.
Jacob Wheeler
Rural Minnesota Is Getting Less White. Meet the Progressive Women Running to Make the Government Less White, Too.
Immigrants, come to work meatpacking and farm jobs, have rejuvenated Nobles County. These women aim to make sure they're represented.
Sarah Lahm
How Decades of Corporate-Friendly Farm Policies Wrecked Rural America
A Wisconsin dairy farmer explains what Democrats need to do to rebuild rural communities and regain the ground they’ve lost.
Jim Goodman
The U.S. Still Uses Dozens of Hazardous Pesticides Banned in Other Countries
Phorate, for example—the “extremely hazardous” insecticide that is most used in the U.S.—is banned in 38 countries, including China, Brazil and India.
Pramod Acharya
Public Lands Make Up a Third of the U.S. and They're Wildly Popular
Professor John Leshy explains how, in a country that glorifies private property, the public came to own so much of the landscape.
Rhett A. Butler
How Do You Flip Rural Trump Voters? Talk to Them.
In 2016, establishment Democrats all but ignored rural communities. Groups like People's Action are changing that, one conversation at a time.
George Goehl
Native Voters Could Swing the 2020 Election—If They’re Able to Vote
Menominee tribal citizens are working to make Native votes count in Wisconsin
Stephanie Woodard
Vandana Shiva: The Pandemic Is a Consequence of the War Against Life
The health emergency of the coronavirus is inseparable from the health emergency of extinction, biodiversity loss and climate change
Vandana Shiva
No Parks for the Poor
In the face of budget cuts, some land management agencies are ramping up user fees — and betraying the egalitarian promise of public lands.
Joseph Bullington
The EPA Responded to a Respiratory Virus by Relaxing Pollution Controls
Major polluters were deemed 'essential.' Under EPA policy, environmental and safety inspectors were not.
Victor B. Flatt and Joel A. Mintz
Healthy Food Comes from Healthy Land, Not from Laboratories
Manufactured meat substitutes do nothing to restore the ecosystems and rural communities ravaged by industrial agriculture.
Will Harris
Sorry Sonny: National Forests Are Not Crops
Secretary of Agriculture Perdue has prioritized logging, mining and grazing on the National Forests that shelter many threatened species.
Adam Rissien
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