Nearly 250 million acres of the Great Plains have been converted to cropland as of 2020. Farmers and wildlife both suffer from the depletion of prairies.
A hot summer and dry spring have brought drought to a large part of the Midwest. The lack of moisture has far-reaching implications, including on agriculture and water levels on the country's largest rivers. Experts say it shows that exiting a drought is far more difficult than entering one.
A proposed pig concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) spurred five northwest Wisconsin towns to regulate big farms — triggering heated debate. A lawsuit against one of those towns was dropped after it rescinded its ordinance.
Smoke from Canadian wildfires that turned skies along the East Coast a sickly yellow also brought air quality alerts to much of the Midwest this week. Climate experts say that as the planet warms, this kind of unhealthy air will become less of an anomaly.
