Rural America

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

Will Bayer Get the Drift on Dicamba?

The agrochemical company has been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits alleging its potent herbicide drifts and damages crops.

Dave Dickey

‘People Are Still Putting Their Bodies on the Line to Stop this Pipeline’

A court found that the Dakota Access Pipeline was built unlawfully. These water protectors are still in prison for trying to stop it.

Joseph Bullington

Agricultural Workers Lose Millions of Dollars Each Year to Employer Wage Theft

It’s against U.S. labor laws, but that hasn’t stopped employers from withholding more than $65 million in worker wages over the last two decades.

Pramod Acharya