How you helped uncover child labor in bird flu kills
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Investigate Midwest’s in-depth reporting takes time and resources. Your support makes it possible. Here’s a look inside that process from reporter John McCracken.
Dec. 16, 2025
Aaron Garcia didn’t want to talk to me at first.
His name was among those listed in hundreds of pages from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment that I received through public records requests. The files showed that his Iowa-based company, Atlas Labor and Staffing Solutions, had been hired to clean and disinfect commercial poultry farms after bird flu outbreaks forced farms to kill millions of birds.
Given the sensitive nature of his company’s work, his hesitation made sense to me. It’s common for farmworkers, farm operators and others along the supply chain to not want to speak with the media.
Then, I told him about the child labor.
My reporting led me to Colorado health department records showing that state health officials had surveyed contract workers at egg farms monitored for bird flu symptoms.
A subsequent Centers for Disease Control report revealed some of those workers had self-identified as young as 15.
Garcia said the practice of child labor in agricultural contract work was common despite its illegality. He also told me he heard of agriculture contract companies hiring underage workers throughout the bird flu epidemic — but that his company has not done so.
“It’s illegal, in the first place, and it does affect the reputation of the guys that are actually trying to do it right and follow the laws,” he said.
Everyone involved in the Colorado culling events — including Rose Acre Farms, the nation’s second-largest egg producer, and Versova Holding, the fifth-largest — denied hiring or using child labor.
The state’s labor department and the U.S. Department of Labor said there was no active investigation and that they were unaware of the incidents. They also said it was unclear whether the depopulation work at these farms would even fall under the purview of child labor laws.
By the time these facts came to light, millions of chickens had been disposed of, production at these farms had returned to normal and contract workers had already moved onto the next job.
Since publishing my investigation, Garcia thanked me for our story and, despite his initial hesitation, we’ve stayed in touch.
Children as young as 15 were working on those farms. It cost more than $200 in records fees — and months of reporting — to uncover those facts. NewsMatch donations make this kind of accountability journalism possible.
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With gratitude,
Wisconsin-based reporter
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