Exclusive: Ex-USDA official defends actions after critical Congressional report in May
The USDA played a central role in the Trump administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While overseeing meatpacking plants as they became coronavirus hotspots, the agency pushed a hands-off approach to regulation as workers died in droves, Congressional investigations show.
The agency's top leaders, such as former Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, have remained largely quiet about their time at the helm since leaving office. But one of these officials — one of the most integral — agreed to answer Investigate Midwest's questions.
In January 2019, Mindy Brashears joined the USDA as its deputy undersecretary for food safety. For her work during the pandemic, in May of this year a Congressional subcommittee named her the meatpacking industry's "go-to fixer."
— Sky Chadde, assistant editor/senior reporter
She says her passion is teaching. Congress called her the meatpacking industry’s ‘go-to fixer.’ | Mary Norkol, Investigate Midwest
During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the meatpacking industry mobilized to keep plants open, even as its workers fell ill. Other than Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, perhaps no other person was more central to the department’s effort to keep plants operating than FSIS’s head, Mindy Brashears.
Mary Norkol is a Gary Marx Journalism Fund Fellow.
Scaling Up: Raising hogs has gotten less expensive, especially for big farms | Madison McVan, Investigate Midwest
Technological advances in hog genetics, feed, veterinary care and housing have made growing hogs more efficient, according to a recent study published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Environmental Research Service.
Read the first part of this series on changing farm sizes.
Read the second part on producers becoming more specialized.
Read the third part on the use of production contracts.
COLUMN: 2023 Farm Bill needs to address consumer-food information gap | Dave Dickey
Just how illiterate has the U.S. public become when it comes to all things agriculture? Shockingly so.
More news
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation.
USDA spending only a sliver of conservation funding on climate-smart practices, a new report finds | Harvest Public Media
The Environmental Working Group report argues the USDA's two biggest conservation programs — the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program — are the main avenues for incentivizing farmers to do climate-smart agriculture. Very little of the money goes toward conservation, the report says.
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