Why this matters

Managers unaware: Newly obtained recordings of OSHA interviews with ADM personnel show top managers at a Nebraska plant were unaware of federal safety standards related to grain dust.

Little discipline: Few, if any, ADM employees were disciplined for unsafe behavior.

Potentially unsafe behavior: The new OSHA records show the agency was told ADM employees were using compressed air to clean dust while machinery ran, which would be a violation of safety requirements.

On Christmas Eve 2022, parts of Archer Daniels Midland’s Fremont, Nebraska, grain processing plant were damaged in an explosion. A mechanical malfunction had created a spark and combustible grain dust caught fire.

No one was injured, but the incident “could have been a hell of a lot worse,” as a federal safety inspector noted to plant managers.

That’s because, in the room where the fire started, grain dust had been allowed to accumulate to about an inch, according to the inspector’s observations. The federal government requires facilities to clean once combustible dust reaches an eighth of an inch.

The fire started in a room where soybeans are ground up, which produced large amounts of dust. Attached to the grinding machine was a bag that collected dust, but the bag had been leaking for an unknown amount of time.

A smolder began in the bag, but the flames escaped through the ducts into other areas of the plant. This left the room covered in dust untouched.

As OSHA investigated, the inspector asked plant management how long it would take for an inch of dust to accumulate, but they didn’t answer. “To me,” he said, “it looks like it hasn’t been touched in a while.”

Hours of interviews with plant employees by Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors, as well as hundreds of pages of notes, detail what led to the 2022 fire. The records were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Investigate Midwest, as part of its ongoing coverage of dust explosions in ADM facilities.

The recordings show that senior staff were unaware of longstanding federal standards related to grain dust; that few, if any, workers had been disciplined for safety lapses related to dust; and that employees used compressed air to clean dust while machinery ran — a potentially dangerous situation.

The newly obtained records add more insight into the company’s safety policies and how those policies are implemented. Across its Midwest plants, ADM has allowed dust to reach unsafe levels, failed to maintain equipment designed to prevent explosions and did not develop procedures to safely remove dust, Investigate Midwest reported in May.

ADM did not respond to requests for comment.

John Newquist, a former OSHA administrator who now trains companies on dust explosion prevention, said facilities should be able to keep dust under control.

“I have seen much worse (than one inch) but I’ve also seen people keep it under the 8th inch,” he said in an email.

Between 2018 and 2024, ADM facilities experienced at least eight dust explosions, according to figures maintained by Purdue University researchers. Numbers for 2025 are not yet available, and there have been no media reports about explosions at ADM facilities in 2025.

ADM is a Fortune 500 company with hundreds of processing facilities in North America. However, only two other companies had more than one dust explosion during the same time frame, according to Purdue’s data. 

In total, one person has died, and 15 others have suffered severe injuries from dust explosions at ADM plants.

At the Fremont facility, a third-party contractor was responsible for cleaning dust. When OSHA began investigating the 2022 incident, the plant’s top manager told the agency he had brought concerns about the contractor to ADM’s corporate office but nothing had been done. For its part, the contractor told OSHA that ADM did not fix anything “until it was broken.”

When asked about the contractor, David Frazelle, a longtime safety executive, told OSHA, “I’m going to say something that our attorney isn’t going to like. (The manager) has been trying to get rid of the maintenance company for quite some time.”

In early 2023, ADM hired a new maintenance contractor for the Fremont plant. The contractor told OSHA that the plant’s top manager, Eric Stanley, was “trying to make a difference.”

The new records show that there were more opportunities for dust explosions at the Fremont facility than previously known. Even small accumulations of dust can lead to large explosions if an ignition source is present.

Between 2021 and 2023, just two fires had been publicly reported. But OSHA documented eight smolders or fires during that time frame.

Ultimately, ADM agreed to pay a fine of about $41,000 for its actions related to the 2022 fire. No individual ADM employees were accused of any wrongdoing. Because of this, Investigate Midwest is withholding most of their names.

But the interviews with ADM employees show how plant staff thought of corporate safety plans.

For instance, during one interview, OSHA inspectors quizzed the plant’s top manager, Stanley, on ADM’s housekeeping practices that were intended to keep the plant free of combustible dust.

“How is the housekeeping (program) … working for your facility?”

“It’s subjective,” he said. 

“Is it effective?” 

“I don’t think any document is ever perfect.”

An inspector asked again if the program was effective.

“It’s pretty subjective,” Stanley replied. “I don’t honestly know how to answer that.”

The inspectors then changed the subject, saying there was no point to go “in circles.”

Compressed air can be a potentially dangerous situation

Cleaning combustible dust inside grain processing facilities requires constant vigilance. Many facilities, including ADM’s Fremont plant, grind up grain 24/7, which flings large amounts of dust into the air.

One way the plant tried to deal with the issue was using compressed air to blow the dust away. However, that just pushed the dust onto the walls.

This practice was in effect until at least January 2023, when OSHA began investigating the Fremont facility following the Christmas Eve fire.

At some point, “upper management (at ADM corporate) said no air,” a plant manager told OSHA, but he said he couldn’t remember when the edict came down.

In order to use compressed air, all machinery must be turned off, according to OSHA standards. This is because an explosion could occur if the unsettled dust touches an ignition source, such as an engine or a heated surface.

Another issue, Newquist said, is “compressed air tends to blow up microfine dust, which can cause a lot of problems in an explosion.” The fine dust can be inhaled and cause serious health problems.

However, the OSHA inspector said he had been told ADM employees had used compressed air to clean dust while machinery was operating. 

In the recording of the exchange, the inspector reminded the manager there are protections for whistleblowers. Then, an attorney for ADM — who works for Seyfarth Shaw LLP, one of the largest law firms in the U.S. — interrupted, asking if the inspector was accusing the manager of wrongdoing. The inspector said no.

“Are you blowing off equipment, with air, while it’s running?” The inspector asked.

“The rules are we are not supposed to be blowing off any equipment while running,” the manager replied. “When we’re not around, I would say, somebody grabs an air gun and blows off that equipment, that’s something out of my hand.”

Senior ADM plant staff unaware of OSHA standards

All employees receive safety training when they are hired, followed by yearly “refresher” training, managers told OSHA. It’s unclear what exactly is in ADM’s safety training. It’s considered a business secret and redacted in the OSHA records.

Senior managers at ADM’s Fremont facility seemed to be unaware of federal standards related to grain dust management, however, according to the recordings.

At the facility, supervisors oversee several employees during a shift and report directly to the top plant manager. OSHA asked one supervisor, who had been in his position for about three years, if he knew the dangers of grain dust. 

“Yes,” he said. “We don’t want to see a footprint. Can lead to fire, explosion.”

“What’s your understanding on how much dust you’re allowed in high-priority areas?” The OSHA inspector asked. 

After a few seconds of silence, the supervisor replied, “I can’t remember. I just know that you can’t have accumulated dust anywhere.”

The inspector then told him the standard is an eighth of an inch.

The inspector asked another senior manager if he knew if “soybean dust” was combustible. (It is.)

“I’m sure it can,” he replied. “You always want to be better safe than sorry.”

The inspector then asked if the company had a policy that helped them gauge if the dust was getting too thick.

The manager, who had recently been promoted, said, “It could be improved.”

Few disciplinary actions taken for safety lapses

Prior to the 2022 fire, the Fremont plant struggled to retain workers. About 20 people were on-site during a shift. Many people would apply, but many would stop showing up to work after a while, according to the recordings.

In the recordings, the plant’s top manager said trying to staff the plant “properly” was a challenge. Another manager told OSHA, “At one point, we didn’t have any labor.” The records are unclear on when or for how long.

ADM did not answer questions about whether high turnover contributed to the few disciplinary actions related to safety.

While discussing the use of compressed air, the OSHA inspector asked the plant supervisor — the one who said if employees use air while he’s not around that’s out of his hands — if he had ever “disciplined any employees for not following safety practices.” This included verbal or written warnings.

“I can’t remember,” the manager said. 

“Have you ever been personally disciplined for not enforcing safety practices?” 

“No.”

In a different interview, the OSHA inspector asked Stanley, the plant’s top manager, if he could remember disciplining any of his direct subordinates over safety concerns. He provided one example of an “administrative error” involving paperwork.

The inspector then asked what ADM’s policy on safety discipline is.

“We handle it on a case-by-case basis,” Stanley said.

“Is there a three-strike rule? Is there anything black and white written (down)?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

ADM’s attorney then jumped in. There is a written disciplinary policy, he said.

“But Eric’s right,” the attorney continued. “It’s case by case,” including termination based on the infraction’s severity.

The post ‘Could have been a hell of a lot worse’: At Nebraska plant, ADM allowed dangerous dust to build up beyond safe levels, recordings show appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

While nearly the same amount of corn and soybean acres have been planted every year since the mid-1990s, the use of pesticides in Illinois has increased exponentially, according to USDA data. 

Synthetic pesticide use has been a dominant agricultural practice since the 1950s, but use escalated dramatically in the mid-1990s when Monsanto, now Bayer, first released its Roundup Ready soybean and corn seeds, which allow farmers to spray directly on their crops, killing weeds without harming their harvest. 

Before the commercial release of the genetically engineered seeds, glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, accounted for a fraction of a percent of the total herbicides used on corn in Illinois. But by 2010, just over a decade after the commercial launch of glyphosate-tolerant corn seeds, glyphosate use accounted for more than 28% of all herbicides used. 

That’s because after only five years of commercial use, dozens of weeds had evolved widespread resistance to glyphosate, becoming what some call superweeds. In response, farmers used more of the herbicide or switched to other products, such as 2,4-D and dicamba.

However, a 2024 study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign indicates that the increase in pesticide use is causing significant damage to prairie grasses and trees across the state, particularly native oaks, hickory and box elders.

Researchers found a direct correlation between surrounding agriculture and damaged native vegetation. Field workers collected hundreds of leaf and soil samples at nearly 200 non-agricultural sites, like nature preserves, forests and wetlands, all within 10 kilometers of corn or soybean operations. They found at least one agricultural chemical at 97% of the locations, and observed visual signs of damage at every site. Chemicals from row crop fields, which can drift and harm unintended targets nearby, were the culprit. 

Sample data from the sites date back five to 25 years, indicating that the increase in pesticide damage coincides with the massive increase in pesticide use. 

The symptoms of pesticide damage in trees include cupped, curled, or twisted leaves, and they become more susceptible to stress from drought, infestations or disease. Repeated chemical exposure has even anecdotally led to tree deaths in some of the state’s oldest landmarks.

By 2023, about a pound of glyphosate was used on every acre of corn and soy planted in Illinois. Despite weed resistance and the rise in the use of other chemicals, it’s still the most widely used pesticide in the state.

The post Increased pesticide use in Illinois is killing native oaks appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

This past year, China has significantly reduced purchases of U.S. agricultural exports in response to President Trump’s tariff hikes. U.S. farmers are struggling as Chinese companies have sought soybeans and other products from countries such as Brazil. 

But this month, Investigate Midwest’s Monica Cordero took a closer look at just how much China has shifted and how its recent investments in Latin America could mean a long-term drop in U.S. purchases. Here are five takeaways from that investigation: 

Soybeans take the biggest hit  

The biggest hit to U.S. farmers has been China’s near-total halt to soybean purchases. Soybeans are a cornerstone of American agriculture, as more than 270,000 farms grow the crop, according to the latest Census of Agriculture. In 2024, more than 40% of U.S. soybean production was exported, with about half going to China.

China has mostly turned to Brazil

Brazil has stepped in as China’s biggest supplier of soybeans, which are used to feed livestock to support protein demand. As of October, Brazil had exported a record 79 million metric tons of soybeans to China, nearly 80% of its total soybean shipments during the period, according to a farmdoc Daily analysis of data from Brazil’s Foreign Trade Secretariat.

More than just seaports

In addition to building more seaport terminals, Chinese companies are building rail lines, tunnels, and other infrastructure to transport more agricultural products from Latin American farms to their ships. These types of investments mean Chinese companies are prepared to buy Latin American products for many years to come. 

“What are the signs that China’s here to stay [in Latin America]? Really, the infrastructure,” said Henry Ziemer, an associate fellow with the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a U.S. nonprofit policy research organization that reports 23 ports across Latin America have some degree of Chinese investment.  “Ports, railways, roads, bridges, metro lines, energy, power plants are probably the best signs that China has a long-term commitment … These are long-term projects.”

China’s shift hits American seaports

The drop in exports to China has also reduced traffic at some key U.S. ports. At the New Orleans District — a dominant grain corridor — soybean exports grew by less than 3% between September 2024 and September 2025, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Shipments through the Los Angeles District fell almost 15%, while the steepest drop came in the Seattle District, where exports plunged 81%.

“Exports in general have been very soft and we attributed it to the retaliatory tariffs that have been put in place by China,” said Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles. “Our single biggest export sector is agriculture … of that, soybeans are the number one export commodity.”

New agreement still falls short

In November, China agreed to buy more U.S. soybeans but it would still fall short of recent norms. Even if China buys at least 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans annually over the next three years, that volume would remain about 14% below the five-year average shipped to China from 2020 to 2024, according to an analysis from Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Agriculture and farmdoc Daily.

Some purchases have started rolling in. But April Hemmes, an Iowa soybean farmer who has promoted increased trade with China, said the agreement would be difficult to fulfill, noting that delivering 12 million metric tons of soybeans by early next year is “not very realistic.” 

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The post 5 things to know: Our investigation into China’s shift to Latin American agriculture appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

Investigate Midwest is a data-centric newsroom. Our weekly Data Harvests aim to visualize key agricultural statistics, and our investigative stories are often rooted in original data analysis.

Of the dozens of charts and maps we published in 2025, here are 17 that give a closer look at the state of the nation’s agriculture industry and food system.

America’s changing cattle industry

The U.S.’s cattle herd has shrunk in recent years, largely due to climate-change-fueled droughts, along with with other market disruptions.

This chart shows cattle loss in the nation’s largest beef-producing states.

In recent years, drought conditions have hit the top cattle counties hardest.

As the nation’s cattle herd shrinks, more beef is being imported, especially from Brazil.

Worker safety

Nearly half of all child labor violations in the agriculture industry since 1995 have occurred in grain, fruit and vegetable farming, according to a review of Department of Labor data.

Investigate Midwest compiled more than two decades of Department of Labor violations data into a searchable database, which you can find here.

As part of an investigation into grain dust explosions, this map shows known incidents at Archer Daniels Midland plants.

Bailouts and farm income

President Trump recently announced plans for a $12 billion bailout for U.S. farmers hurt by his tariff hikes and the responding trade war. When he issued billions to farmers during his first term, some criticized the uneven distribution. This chart shows how various producers fared during Trump’s last farmer bailout.

Due to rising production costs, low crop prices and the effects of the trade war, economists project that growers could see roughly $44 billion in net cash income losses from their 2025–26 crops. This chart shows the projected loss facing corn, wheat and soybean farmers.

This chart shows the rising costs of farming essentials like fertilizer, seed and fuel.

Black farmers, immigrants and diversity programs

While the total number of farms has decreased over the past hundred years, Black farmers have suffered disproportionately. This chart shows that in 1920, Black-owned farms made up about 15% of all operations. In 2022, the figure was 1.5%.

While the number of farms in America has long been on a steady decline, 13 of the nation’s 30 largest cities have added farming operations, based on county-level data. The data indicate that much of the growth is from small urban farming operations, as shown in this map. 

Trump’s rollback of DEI initiatives has cast uncertainty over USDA programs vital to socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. From 2019 to 2023, the U.S Department of Agriculture provided $2 billion in critical financial support to these farmers and ranchers – those of color, women, and other underserved groups – in Midwestern states to support farming operations and farmland development, according to USDA data.

The Trump administration ended work permits for more than 530,000 immigrants through a humanitarian parole program, a move that could have far-reaching economic consequences for the country’s agricultural sector. This chart showed which industries these immigrant workers were employed in.

The rural economy

Independent grocery stores are disappearing as the number of large national chains grows, especially in rural communities, as this chart shows.

While the national food insecurity rate has dropped slightly over the last decade, farming-dependent counties have seen an 11.7% increase, as shown in these two graphics.

Climate change

Dust storms have become increasingly common in the U.S., according to data from the National Centers for Environmental Information. But the increase has been especially sharp in key agricultural states, as this chart shows.

Less than half of residents in farming-dependent counties say they are worried about climate change, well below the 63% national average. But in farming counties that have faced some of the most extreme weather events, concern is often greater, as seen in this chart.

The post These 17 charts tell the story of the US food system in 2025 appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

From a new presidential administration and sweeping changes at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to the world’s largest retailer entering the beef industry and unchecked water use by a giant poultry producer, 2025 was a year of investigating power across the agricultural industry.

Here are some of our biggest stories from the past 12 months.

Politics, federal and state

President Trump’s impact on the agriculture sector was significant, but state lawmakers also played an important role in shaping the nation’s food system.

Worker safety

From farms to factories, work in the food system can be dangerous. These stories examined how both corporations and government regulators failed to keep workers safe.

Immigrant workers

The food system, which heavily relies on immigrant workers, was upended this year by the Trump administration’s push to deport thousands of undocumented residents and end legal programs.

Corporate control

These stories investigated some of the most powerful corporate players in the agriculture sector and their impact on the environment, consumer prices and government regulations.

Rural life

From fights over Big Ag’s water use to rising hunger rates in farming communities, these stories provide an on-the-ground look at some of the challenges across the heartland.

Pesticide use

Pesticide use has increased across the Midwest, raising questions about regulations and safety.

The post Our biggest stories in 2025 appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

From the docks of the Port of Santos, a 58-terminal complex covering an area the size of 1,500 American football fields, ships loaded with soybeans prepare to set sail for China. 

Less than 45 miles from São Paulo, the port services nearly a quarter of Brazil’s soybean exports. For decades, U.S. agribusiness giants like Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge and Cargill have operated facilities at the port. 

Today, they share space with COFCO International, China’s state-owned food conglomerate, which has invested around $285 million in recent years. The expansion will make it the port’s largest dry bulk terminal.

And Santos isn’t alone. In the west, the Port of Chancay is rising on Peru’s central coast.

COSCO Shipping, a state-owned Chinese company, is investing at least $3.5 billion to construct 15 berths, logistics facilities, and a 1.1-mile tunnel, enabling cargo to be channelled directly from the port to nearby highways.

Once fully operational, Chancay will function as a regional redistribution hub for exports from Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia: from copper and lithium to soybeans and other agricultural products. Upon completion around 2035, it is expected to become the region’s third-largest port.

These and other recent investments across the region have positioned China to source more agricultural products from Latin America as it pivots away from U.S. farmers in response to President Trump’s higher tariffs. 

China first began that pivot in 2018, when Trump’s first-term tariff hikes ignited a global trade war. But since returning to office, the president has renewed that strategy, and China’s investments signal a generational shift that may not reverse if and when the trade war subsides. 

“What are the signs that China’s here to stay [in Latin America]? Really, the infrastructure,” said Henry Ziemer, an associate fellow with the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a U.S. nonprofit policy research organization that reports 23 ports across Latin America have some degree of Chinese investment.  

“Ports, railways, roads, bridges, metro lines, energy, power plants are probably the best signs that China has a long-term commitment … These are long-term projects.”

Daniel Munch, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, said that when a country gains control over ports that make trade faster, cheaper and more reliable, such as the Port of Chancay, trade flows tend to “lock in.” Reversing that trend, he warned, would require the United States to narrow its efficiency gap, noting that none of its container ports rank among the world’s top 50.

“It could entrench patterns,” Munch said.

This is bad news for American farmers, particularly soybean growers. 

Soybeans are a cornerstone of American agriculture, particularly in the Midwest. Nationwide, more than 270,000 farms grow the crop, according to the latest Census of Agriculture. In Illinois, nearly half of all farms depend on soybean production, and in Iowa and Minnesota, about four in 10 do.

In 2024, more than 40% of U.S. soybean production was exported, with about half going to China.

But tensions between the United States and China have risen this year – Trump has increased tariffs and recently threatened a 157% tax on all Chinese imports, while China responded by reducing U.S. soybean imports to near zero for six months. 

A trade deal announced in November ends the suspension and includes commitments for China to buy 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans in the final two months of 2025 and at least 25 million metric tons annually through 2028, according to Purdue University and farmdoc Daily. 

Brazil has stepped in as China’s biggest supplier of soybeans, which are used to feed livestock to support protein demand. 

China has become one of the two main export markets for at least 10 nations, most of them in South America, according to the International Trade Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean 2023 report by the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

From 2010 to 2022, the region accounted for nearly one-third of China’s food imports. Brazil alone supplied about 21% of those imports over the same period.

“In recent years, there has been significant growth in telecommunications projects and across all areas of transportation – including airports, ports, roads, railways, and subways – as well as in sanitation and urban mobility. These sectors account for nearly 60% of the total number of projects,” said José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, executive secretary of ECLAC, who highlighted the scale of China’s involvement during the 2024 International Seminar on Contemporary China Studies in Costa Rica.

China has viewed Brazil as a strategic partner for several years, primarily because of its soybean supply, and has responded with infrastructure investments, according to Fernando Bastiani, a researcher with ESALQ-LOG, the Group of Research and Extension in Agroindustrial Logistics at the University of São Paulo.

“Today, COFCO has direct access to farmers, purchases soybeans, and oversees the entire commercialization chain, including storage and transport to China,” Bastiani said. “In recent years, [COFCO] has also realized it needs to control logistics systems and infrastructure, because that’s a key part.”

In Brazil, Bastiani explained, logistics costs account for 20% to 25% of the final soybean price, mainly due to the long distances between farms and ports and the high cost of trucking. “China understood that by investing in infrastructure, it could help make Brazil more competitive,” he said.

In May, the two countries signed new agreements to deepen their agricultural trade ties, granting Brazil authorization to export meat and ethanol byproducts. 

“Amid the changing and turbulent international landscape, China and Brazil should remain committed to the original aspiration of contributing to human progress and global development,” said President Xi Jinping during the meeting.

China’s pullback squeezes U.S. port volumes 

While Latin America has seen growth, many U.S. ports have experienced a significant decline in business.

At the New Orleans District — a dominant grain corridor — soybean exports grew by less than 3% between September 2024 and September 2025, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Shipments through the Los Angeles District fell almost 15%, while the steepest drop came in the Seattle District, where exports plunged 81%.

Nearly half of all U.S. corn, soybean and wheat exports move through the Mississippi River system, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s Market Intel report.

This major inland trade artery connects the Midwest’s farming regions to the Gulf of Mexico, carrying an average of 65 million metric tons annually of bulk agricultural products by barge over the past five years to export terminals near New Orleans, where shipments depart for international markets.

“The facilities that purchase soybeans from farmers extend to our freight railroads, where they don’t have as much volume that they’ve been moving, at least for soybeans,” said Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition. 

Steenhoek noted that corn exports have remained strong, which has helped sustain some port activity — but it hasn’t solved the underlying problem: “China imports more U.S. soybeans than all of our other international customers combined,” he said.

At the Port of Los Angeles, the largest container port in the Western Hemisphere, agricultural exports have also weakened as trade with China cools.

“Exports in general have been very soft and we attributed it to the retaliatory tariffs that have been put in place by China,” said Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles. “Our single biggest export sector is agriculture … of that, soybeans are the number one export commodity.”

Before the first tariffs were introduced in 2018, China accounted for about 60% of the port’s business. Today, it’s closer to 40% and falling, as trade flows and sourcing shift toward countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. 

“We’ve been very aggressive in finding cargo out of other countries,” Seroka said. “But there is no doubt in my mind that we are concerned every day that these policies could impact the amount of cargo that comes to Los Angeles.”

The decrease in exports is not just a hit to farmers, but also to port workers; each four containers handled at the port generates one job, according to Seroka.

“In Southern California, one in nine people has a job related to this port,” said Seroka, referring to dockworkers, truck drivers, brokers and warehouse employees. “It truly is a conversation of national significance.”

U.S. port traffic isn’t poised for a quick rebound despite a recent trade agreement that ends China’s suspension of U.S. soybean imports. After six months of near-zero shipments due to retaliatory trade measures, Beijing in November agreed to purchase 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans in the final two months of 2025 and to commit to annual purchases of at least 25 million tons through 2028.

A recent analysis from Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Agriculture and farmdoc Daily said the announcement offered some relief to U.S. farmers at the tail end of harvest, but overall exports to China this year are still on track to be the weakest since 2018, when trade tensions during the first Trump administration slashed volumes to 8 million tons.

“It is very difficult to take a market [China] of over a billion people and replace that,” said John Bartman, a soybean farmer from Marengo, Illinois.

By October, Brazil had exported a record 79 million metric tons of soybeans to China, nearly 80% of its total soybean shipments during the period, according to a farmdoc Daily analysis of data from Brazil’s Foreign Trade Secretariat. Brazil’s total soybean exports reached about 100 million tons between January and October, already surpassing the country’s full-year total for 2024, which was just under 99 million tons.

“U.S. soybean farmers are standing at a trade and financial precipice,” Caleb Ragland, president of the American Soybean Association, wrote in a statement. 

US trade strategy remains unsettled as China moves ahead

While China builds long-term infrastructure to secure its supply chains, Washington is still struggling to define its trade strategy and to contain the political fallout of renewed tariffs.

In mid-September, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives moved to block Congress from influencing Trump’s tariff policy, even as Senate Democrats prepared to force votes challenging his trade war, The New York Times reported. The maneuver effectively stripped lawmakers of the ability to advance measures to lift tariffs until March 31, 2026, extending a prohibition first imposed in the spring to spare members from taking a politically difficult vote.

“Tariffs not only cause farmers to pay more for their inputs, but they have also seen tariffs reduce markets for U.S. farm products,” said U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, during an October session.

If the November soybean agreement between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping holds, Beijing’s purchases would still fall short of recent norms. Even if China buys at least 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans annually over the next three years, that volume would remain about 14% below the five-year average shipped to China from 2020 to 2024, according to an analysis from Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Agriculture and farmdoc Daily.

Some purchases have started rolling in. But April Hemmes, an Iowa soybean farmer who has promoted increased trade with China, said the agreement would be difficult to fulfill, noting that delivering 12 million metric tons of soybeans by early next year is “not very realistic.” 

As China establishes new trade routes across Latin America, every new port or shipping lane makes a future recovery for U.S. farmers more challenging.

Despite the tensions, Hemmes still views China as an essential market. 

“I don’t think our relationship with China has been damaged,” the Iowa soybean farmer said. “China is a low-cost buyer and will need soybeans from the U.S. for a long time. But we will never be their number one source.”

For her, the changing politics and policies have made the United States an “unreliable trading partner.”

“The only way that we become their top choice would be if our soybeans were far cheaper than South America’s.”

The post China is investing billions in Latin America, potentially sidelining US farmers for decades to come appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

It’s pumpkin season – from spiced lattes to Halloween decorations on the porch – and chances are it was grown in Illinois. 

Just over a third of all pumpkins in the United States – 485 million pounds – come from Illinois, according to annual USDA surveys.

Much of that production centers on Morton, a village in Tazewell County that proudly calls itself the “Pumpkin Capital of the World.” About 85% of the world’s canned pumpkin is packed at the Nestlé/Libby’s plant in the middle of town.

Indiana ranks second in production, but Illinois grows roughly three times as many pumpkins, even after its production fell by 30% last year. That decline came even though the harvested acres remained steady; acreage had already dropped by nearly 18% in 2023 compared to the previous year.

Despite their hard exterior, pumpkins are highly susceptible to adverse weather conditions.

Depending on the location, farmers typically begin planting between late May and early July, allowing the pumpkins approximately four months to mature for a fall harvest.

A late spring frost can wipe out young plants before they have a chance to take root. At the same time, extreme summer heat can cause blossoms to fall before they are pollinated, according to a 2024 publication from the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Excessive rainfall can also delay planting in spring or harvesting in autumn, and leave crops more vulnerable to disease.

According to USDA Economic Research Service data, Illinois not only leads the nation in pumpkin production acreage but also devotes most of its fields to processing varieties, the kind used in pies and canned filling. 

Nearly 70% of Illinois’ pumpkin acres are dedicated to pie filling and other processing uses, compared with just 3% in Pennsylvania and even less in Washington, Indiana, and California. This focus helps explain why Illinois outpaces other states in both yield and price.

Other states are catching up, though. In 2024, New York, Wisconsin and Michigan reported the most significant gains, with production increasing by 49%, 43%, and 33%, respectively.

The post Where do your pumpkins come from? Illinois keeps the crown appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

Over the last four decades, America’s agricultural output has nearly doubled, as the production of livestock and crops has not only fed the nation but also fueled growing food demand in Asia and South America.  

But in the rural communities that have made the U.S. a global food power, residents are increasingly finding it difficult to access enough food for themselves. 

While the national food insecurity rate has dropped slightly over the last decade, farming-dependent counties have seen an 11.7% increase.

Farming counties saw the second-highest increase among the six federal economic categories — farming, mining, recreation, manufacturing, government and nonspecific — according to an analysis by Investigate Midwest of U.S. Census Bureau and Feeding America data.

“I’m worried it will get worse,” said Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union, who said rising farm costs and falling commodity prices are creating a “perfect storm” for farmers. 

“I get the feeling that after fall harvest, if farmers aren’t able to pay their bills at the co-op, or pay their fertilizer bill, spray bill, seed bill, that kind of thing, then that means they’re struggling to put food on the table, too.”

The closure of grocery stores, tighter margins for farmers and ranchers, and the ongoing economic struggles of rural America all contribute to this hunger spike in farming communities.

But the problem of food insecurity could worsen as the Trump administration and Congress recently approved cuts to federal food assistance, farm-to-school programs and other grants that had been helping rural communities access local food.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will also stop collecting and releasing statistics on food insecurity after October 2025, saying the numbers had become “overly politicized.” 

The nation’s 444 farming-dependent counties, largely concentrated in the Midwest, had an average food insecurity rate of 14.5%. While in line with the national average, the recent increase points to a worsening economy in rural America. 

Nearly three-fourths of all farming counties saw an increase in food insecurity rates from 2013 to 2023.

“The farmer is the eternal optimist; they always feel like things are going to turn around, and maybe they will,” Levendofsky said. “But it sure doesn’t feel like it right now.”

SNAP, a program rooted in helping farmers, faces steep cuts

Amy Ranky set out a selection of chili peppers and zucchini as a light drizzle fell in downtown Oklahoma City on a late August Saturday. From an hour away in rural Caddo County, where her family operates a vegetable and flower farm, Ranky’s final touch on her farmers market stand was a bright yellow sign that read, “We welcome SNAP.” 

“It’s an amazing program, we just need more people to know about it,” Ranky said about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the federal food assistance program often referred to as food stamps. 

Always looking for ways to increase her SNAP customer base, Ranky grew edible pumpkins this year so they would qualify. 

“Every little bit helps,” Ranky said. 

SNAP’s origins were in helping farmers. 

The 1964 Food Stamp Act, which made the program permanent, was promoted by then-Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman as a way to strengthen the farm economy – “Our farmers should have access to the full potential of our domestic market for food,” he said.  

Over the next several decades, SNAP became both a needed lifeline for those living in poverty and an economic boost for farmers.

In 2005, state health officials in New York had an idea: What if SNAP dollars were worth more when spent on fresh fruits and vegetables?

The idea was simple: While $1 in SNAP money typically equals just $1 for soda or a bag of chips, that same dollar would turn into $2 if spent on produce, in an effort to make it more affordable. 

The idea took hold and was adopted by several states, including Oklahoma, in 2019. 

Today, the Double Up Oklahoma program is available at more than 80 locations, including at least 27 farmers markets, most in rural communities. 

“SNAP benefits a lot of communities, but it’s been great for farmers, it’s good for local communities and it creates an access point for everyone, not just SNAP users,” said Chris Bernard, executive director of Hunger Free Oklahoma, the nonprofit that administers the state’s Double Up program. 

Federal SNAP funds totalled nearly $100 billion last year and served more than 41 million people each month. On average, farmers receive 24.3 cents per SNAP dollar, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

But this year, the Republican-controlled Congress approved a reconciliation measure — part of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — that could cut SNAP funds by 20% over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. 

Large agriculture associations, including the American Farm Bureau, praised the bill, calling it a boost for farmers. “Lawmakers took a big step toward ensuring America’s farmers and ranchers can continue to keep pantries filled for America’s families,” said Zippy Duvall, the Farm Bureau’s president. 

The bill added $59 million to crop insurance programs, which the American Farm Bureau lobbied for. However, crop insurance programs primarily benefit large commodities, such as corn and soybeans, much of which is  used for fuel, animal feed and shipped overseas. 

In addition to SNAP cuts, the bill also eliminated several other rural food programs, including Local Food for Schools, which helped schools purchase more food from local farmers. 

The Local Food for Schools program not only increased the use of fresh fruits and vegetables in school meals, but it also provided new business opportunities for local farmers, said Debbie Friedman, director of policy at the Food Insight Group, a California-based research organization.  

“Most of these farms (in the program) are small and medium-sized farms, and this was a significant part of their revenue,” Friedman said. “We are already losing farms ridiculously quickly and this doesn’t help.” 

From 2017 to 2022, 409 counties lost at least 15% of their farmers and ranchers, according to USDA data. 

Tighter margins and rising property values have forced many farmers to sell their land, Friedman said, especially as large corporations and commodity operations expand. 

“I wish people understood that when they talk about wanting healthier, fresh foods in school and wanting to support farms, that this is doing the opposite,” Friedman said. 

Federal cuts could put more pressure on states to address hunger

In the last 10 years, food insecurity rates rose by at least 50% in 20 farm-dependent counties nationwide — more than half of them in North Dakota. 

Adams County, a prairie region in southwest North Dakota that raises sheep and cattle, had a food insecurity rate of just 6.7% a decade ago. Today, its rate has nearly doubled to 11.8%. 

While the amount of farmland in the county has stayed the same, it has lost one in 10 farmers and seen farm-related income plunge by nearly 45%, according to USDA data. 

Several other farm counties in the state saw similar spikes in food insecurity, along with declining farm incomes. 

Like many rural communities across the country, hunger rates in North Dakota spiked after COVID-19. The Great Plains Food Bank, the only large food bank in the state, said it served 40% more people in the years after the pandemic.

“We’ve reached full capacity at our current facility, and the demand for food assistance is higher than ever,” Melissa Sobolik, CEO of the Great Plains Food Bank, said in a statement.  

Earlier this year, the North Dakota legislature approved $5 million to build a new statewide distribution center for the food bank. While the center will be built in Fargo, at the far eastern edge of the state, food bank leaders said it will connect to major transportation routes, allowing food to reach rural communities quickly.

The expansion could be critical as the state faces a 35% SNAP cut, according to an analysis from The Commonwealth Fund.

With the federal SNAP cuts, states could face a greater burden in addressing hunger, said Gina Plata-Nino, the SNAP deputy director for the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit fighting hunger. But farm-heavy states could struggle most to fill that gap.

“It is rural states that are going to fare the worst because they don’t have the same property tax revenue to make up for the federal cuts,” Plata-Nino said. “But if you’re in a state with so many struggling farmers, no (lawmaker) is going to say ‘let’s raise taxes.’ ”

Instead, Plata-Nino predicts states will look to cut other services, like education and health care, which will also have a direct impact on rural communities.

“Farming is part of a larger ecosystem, and when you already have (tight) margins, any reduction in people buying food is going to hurt,” Plata-Nino said. “Some farmers are going to say, ‘Okay, I just can’t keep going.’ ” 

Associated Press data reporter Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report. This reporting is part of a series called Sowing Resilience, a collaboration between the Institute for Nonprofit News’ Rural News Network and The Associated Press. Nine nonprofit newsrooms were involved: The Beacon, Capital B, Enlace Latino NC, Investigate Midwest, The Jefferson County Beacon, KOSU, Louisville Public Media, The Maine Monitor and MinnPost. The Rural News Network is funded by Google News Initiative and Knight Foundation, among others.

The post These rural communities feed the world. They’re also going hungry. appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

Rural Illinois is shrinking. 

Over the past decade, all of Illinois’ 21 farm-dependent counties – places where farming makes up a large share of jobs and income – have lost population. 

Meanwhile, the state’s rural areas tied to meatpacking and food manufacturing have seen immigration slow population losses and, in some cases, keep local economies afloat. 

Nationwide, 84% of population growth in the last year came from people born outside of the U.S. In rural areas, that share was even higher at 87%,  according to analysis from Daily Yonder using U.S. Census Data. (The U.S. Census Bureau counts both legal and unauthorized migrants in its data.) 

JBS in Beardstown has long relied on foreign-born workers. However, hundreds of those workers were laid off after President Trump revoked the legal status for over 500,000 migrants living in the U.S. Without work, many of the former JBS workers are wondering what is next, as does a town and a county that continues to see its population decline. 

In Macon County, anchored by Decatur and the global headquarters of Archer Daniels Midland, nearly 1,000 immigrants have arrived in the last four years – but the county has still lost more than 3,000 residents in that time, showing how immigration can slow but not always reverse population loss. 

While two-thirds of Illinois’ land is devoted to farmland, the state’s hundreds of food processing plants also drive its nonmetropolitan economies — and they rely heavily on immigrant workers, both legal and unauthorized. Food manufacturing is concentrated in the Chicagoland region, including Kane, DuPage, Lake, and suburban Cook County. Between 2023 and 2024, over 50,000 migrants arrived from the southern border to Chicago. 

The reliance on immigrant workers makes Trump’s pledge of mass deportations especially significant for communities tied to agriculture and food processing. 

At a meeting with Illinois pork producers in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 12, U.S. Sen. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., expressed the importance of immigrant labor, as reported by Riverbender.com.  

“Illinois pork production relies heavily on foreign workers, working on the farm, in meat packing plants, in restaurants, and in grocery stores. These are the toughest jobs in the country, it is difficult work, and we need them. These workers are an essential part of pork production,” Durbin said. 

Note: High farming-concentration counties are defined by the USDA as counties where 20% or more of average annual earnings were derived from farming, or 17% or more of jobs were in farming.

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U.S. farmers are likely staring down another year in the red, faced with a familiar cycle: rising costs and weakening markets.

After years of strong grain prices between 2021 and 2023, growing corn and soybeans is no longer profitable — a trend likely to continue and one that farm groups warn could spark a financial crisis for farmers.

For corn, the average total cost of producing an acre jumped 26% between 2021 and 2022, peaking at a record $928. Costs eased slightly to $888 per acre in 2024, while the average value of production slipped to $757 — leaving farmers with a $131 loss per acre.

USDA forecast data for 2025 and 2026 shows that the cost of production for corn is projected to keep going up, with farmers expected to spend an average of $915 to grow an acre of corn in 2026 — up from $897 this year. The USDA also lowered the projected average price for 2025 from $4.20 for a bushel of corn to $3.90.

Between 2021 and 2023, average corn and soybean prices stayed high, exceeding production costs. Economists at the University of Illinois and Ohio State University point to several factors: China rebuilding its swine herd in 2020, the Russia-Ukraine war disrupting European supplies and driving uncertainty, and weak harvests in South America and the U.S.

The current slump isn’t unprecedented: from 2014 to 2020, average corn prices also fell below production costs. But farm groups and lawmakers warn the current downturn is especially concerning.

With the combined issues of last year’s corn and soybean crops still sitting in storage, uncertainty from the U.S.-China tariff war, no new farm bill in place, and federal relief from the new “Big Beautiful Bill” delayed until October 2026, farmers face an especially tough stretch ahead.

The National Corn Growers Association has sounded the alarm about “the economic crisis hitting rural America,” while the American Soybean Association warned in a letter to Trump that “U.S. soybean farmers are standing at a trade and financial precipice.”

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