Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024 Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
ADM's North America HQ regularly visited by first responders
In late 2023, a massive fire broke out at a facility at Archer Daniels Midland's North American headquarters, in Decatur, Illinois. Several employees of the multinational grain processing company were hospitalized.
While the fire grabbed headlines, it was far from the facility's only incident. Just last year, machinery crushed a man who was close to retirement, and a different fire landed two firefighters in the hospital.
OSHA had jurisdiction over some of the incidents, but the agency's investigations don't show the whole scope of the facility's safety record. For most of last year, for example, Decatur first responders were dispatched to the facility at least once a week on average.
— Sky Chadde, assistant editor/senior reporter
Accidents and emergency calls mount at Archer Daniels Midland plants in Decatur in past year
By Nour Longi and Madison Holcomb, CU-Citizen Access
Emergency medical services and fire department reports obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request show emergency responders were dispatched to the Archer Daniels Midland plant in Decatur, Ill., at least 68 times between January 2023 and October 2023.
Read more.
GRAPHIC: Fertilizer prices reach a record high
By John McCracken, Investigate Midwest
The price of fertilizer has been on a steady increase since the late 1980s. This price increase has led American farmers to worry about a reliance on the global supply chain and launched federal incentives to make the chemicals domestically.
View the graphic.
News from our partners
Spilling Bill’s beans: Tech billionaire spent $113 million on Nebraska farmland By Flatwater Free Press
Bill Gates, the billionaire who co-founded Microsoft, has in the past six years spent more than $113 million buying Nebraska farmland. The Flatwater Free Press analyzed five years of land sales data, between 2018 and 2022. Nebraskans living and farming in communities where Gates is among the largest landowners are often unaware that one of the world’s richest men owns the cornfield down the road.
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.
