Sept. 26, 2024 The Midwest Center For Investigative Reporting
America’s largest corn company says it takes labor abuses seriously while hiring a repeat offender
For more than a year, Investigate Midwest reporters Mónica Cordero and Sky Chadde have investigated T. Bell Detasseling, a family-run business and labor contractor that hires hundreds of guest visa workers yearly to “detassel,” or remove the flowery tops of Iowa cornstalks.
Based on thousands of pages of federal and state records, internal company documents and several interviews with two longtime employees, this week’s story highlights T. Bell’s history of labor violations and the questionable fees taken out of worker paychecks.
Corteva, which controls about 40% of the corn market, has hired T. Bell for years, even as the company has pledged that its supply chains will be as free from labor abuses as possible.
This story also explores how the federal government found T. Bell had placed more stringent job requirements on U.S. candidates than it did on H-2A candidates — a clear violation of the law.
— Ben Felder, editor in chief
America's largest corn company, Corteva Agriscience, pledges no supply chain abuses. It's hired a repeat offender in Iowa.
By Mónica Cordero, Report for America corps member, and Sky Chadde, Investigate Midwest
CONESVJLLE, Iowa - The deductions frustrated him.
"You earn money faster" in the U.S. than in Mexico, the man said in Spanish. But the deductions in every paycheck slowed his earnings, and he and his family needed every dollar. A few weeks working in Iowa corn fields, with a temporary labor visa, helped him cover his expenses back home.
Still, "they discount us a lot," he said.
One was a daily, and vexing, laundry fee. His employer distributed mesh bags for dirty clothes, pledging to clean - for a price - the belongings of the hundreds of visa workers it hired. But "the returned clothes are still dirty," the man said.
He'd handed over muddy pants before. When he got them back, the pair remained stained. Another worker said, despite the laundry promises, his clothes were so rank with sweat and dirty at the end of his time in America he just threw them away. The total fee amount equaled a couple weeks' worth of groceries for a Mexican family.
Read more.
GRAPHIC: Americans are eating out far more — and it's affecting their diets
By Sky Chadde, Investigate Midwest
In the 1970s, Americans consumed most meals at home. While that’s still generally true, Americans’ diets have changed over the past half-century, and rather starkly.
Consumers now get about a third of their calories from eating out, according to research from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Many of those calories come from fast food chains. In the late 1970s, Americans got about 6% of their calories from fast food. Now, it’s about 16%.
Search the graphic.
Sunset on the Farm celebrates food, family and fun
Investigate Midwest's annual Sunset on the Farm celebrated its IowaWatch newsroom on the first day of autumn, Sept. 22, at the Walker Homestead, just outside of Iowa City.
Approximately 70 people gathered to enjoy live music, woodfired pizza, make-your-own s'mores, and the beautiful setting and ambiance of the Iowa countryside.
Investigate Midwest thanks the University of Iowa event management class, including Heather Spangler, University coordinator, and Payton Spindler, student coordinator. We thank sponsors of the event: the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Randy Evans and the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, Alan Swanson and Blank McCue Real Estate, and Hills Bank, and the many businesses and individuals who donated goods for the silent auction.
Investigate Midwest will be back with its fall Live Storytelling Night on Thursday, Nov. 7. This event features local Iowa City-area people with a story to share. This year's theme will be “Lost and Found: What I found when something was lost.”
Watch for further details on our website.
ICYMI: Dead smoke alarms, moldy rooms, empty first aid kits: Farmworkers endure unsafe and substandard housing across US
By Sky Chadde, Investigate Midwest
- Farmworkers often endure poor fire prevention, such as dead smoke alarms, empty or missing fire extinguishers, and, in some cases, blocked emergency exits. In at least one instance, questions about smoke alarms working were raised after an employer-provided dwelling burned down.
- Leaks, contributing to mold or mildew, were found in employer-provided housing across the country.
- Investigate Midwest attempted to obtain farmworker housing inspection records from all 50 states, but it was stymied. So far, the newsroom has obtained and analyzed records from 19 states.
Read more.
OPINION: Clarity needed over glyphosate warning labels at state, fed levels
By Dave Dickey, Columnist
After two colossal failures, Bayer AG finally got a golden ticket from a U.S. Court of Appeals making it certain that the ongoing fight over glyphosate warning labels falls into the lap of the Supreme Court.
If nothing else, Bayer is prescient.
In recent years, plaintiffs have increasingly claimed that Bayer failed to warn them of the risks of using Roundup, often citing a 2015 International Agency for Research on Cancer study that concluded glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic to humans” — a decision Bayer outright rejects as does the EPA.
The judicial linchpin of failure-to-warn lawsuits surrounds interpretation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.
Read more.
Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Our mission is to serve the public as a watchdog over influential corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism.
