I can’t wait to be back in Iowa City in the fall, where I’ll be getting my MFA in nonfiction writing. What a gift to have few duties other than to write. And help my parents fix lightbulbs. Corn Belt Confidential is where you can best keep in touch. Go Hawks!

US retailer Wild Fork Foods promotes its meat products as sustainable, local, and bespoke, with “butchers” and “in-house chefs” selecting cuts, but the company is owned by JBS, the largest meatpacker in the world. By @ninaelkadi.com for @sentientmedia.org

My latest, a follow-up to news last summer of the 200 workers at the Ottumwa JBS plant who lost their work authorization.

I got tipped off about Wild Fork Foods, a meat-market catered to niche consumers in affluent suburbs. Turns out it's owned by JBS. (thread)

As per usual, @littlevillage.bsky.social has quite the cover. Dare I say abstract nitrate pollution art is hauntingly beautiful?

Today, 83 groups sent a letter to RFK Jr. and Lee Zeldin requesting that nitrate pollution be treated as a public health emergency, which could open up funding for rural communities to help address the issue.

Re-upping our short piece on Trump’s invocation of the Defense Production Act to produce glyphosate and shield the herbicide companies. With @naomioreskes.bsky.social

Here’s a glyphosate story you haven’t seen yet. @paperwords.bsky.social investigates the tens of thousands of acres of forest being sprayed like cropland. @revealnews.org

“The analysis comes on the heels of other recent reports and studies linking nitrate pollution from farms to cancer in heavy agricultural states,” writes Brian Bienkowski of @thenewlede.bsky.social. littlevillagemag.com/farm-runoff-...