What does an increases in foreign investment mean for farmers in Iowa? IowaWatch Connection, a statewide radio program, dug into the issue of foreign investment and food security.
One important way to ensure food security in the United States is to keep farmland ownership from going into foreign hands. That doesn't always happen.
A federal class action lawsuit on behalf of two migrant farm workers was filed in federal court last week accusing Monsanto of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Agricultural Workers Protection Act in its treatment of farmworkers who help produce seed corn.
Over the past decade, foreign companies have been investing in agricultural land in the United States at a record pace, according to a Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting analysis of USDA data. The data was compiled from 1900 to 2014 under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (A
The top 10 foreign investors own about $8.1 billion worth of agriculture land, almost one-fifth of all holdings, according to calculations by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.
The weather that led to the below-average conditions could be a preview of future climate conditions, according to a new study from the University of Illinois.
Almost 1,000 pivots have been installed in counties statewide in the past four years as a result of higher crop prices and the demand of seed corn companies, an almost 20 percent increase in overall irrigation that equals the use of more than half a million people each year.
“If I was going to invest in farm ground, if some of these climate scenarios come true, then having irrigation might be something that would pay off in the long-term,” Roadcap said.
Since the 2012 drought, the number of irrigation pivots in Champaign County has more than doubled. Brad Uken, the manager of the Champaign County Farm Bureau, said that one of the driving factors behind the recent growth in irrigation has been seed corn companies moving toward growers that have inst
The drought of 2012 was the worst since at least 1988, spanning the entire Corn Belt, from Ohio to Wyoming, and costing the agribusiness industry billions of dollars.
While Illinois is not currently facing a water crisis, highly populated areas with high growth – namely Chicagoland and Champaign County – are starting to see some levels of water conflict, and agricultural irrigation is playing a major role.
