A support group and a lab in the St. Louis area provide resources for people with the allergy to mammal products — and evidence that its effects can be reversed.
Ag & Water Desk reporters Chloe Johnson (right) and Madeline Heim (second from right) visit Mississippi River Lock and Dam #8 in Genoa, Wisconsin, in late July.
By Ag & Water Desk editorial director Tegan Wendland in Viroqua, Wisconsin.
The best part of my job is getting to combine how I grew up, on a farm in rural Wisconsin, with my decade of experience reporting on the Mississippi River delta in Louisiana. The Desk has allowed me to draw connections between upstream issues that are personal to my friends and family with downstream issues that are now personal to me and my community in New Orleans.
Once a year, when I visit home, I invite our Midwestern reporters to join me – and worlds collide.
Last week, current and former Desk reporters Maddy Heim (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), Chloe Johnson (Star Tribune) and Bennet Goldstein (Wisconsin Watch) joined me in the Driftless region (check out our latest story about this geologically unique area!) to meet with local conservation officials, educators, farmers and fellow journalists.
We learned about everything from controversial proposed dam removals to Organic Valley’s carbon “insetting” program. My old friend and high school history teacher Jacob Hundt hosted us at Thoreau College, which is also part of the Driftless Folk School, and even threw a barbeque for us with chicken, lamb and pork all raised by the college. Of course I foraged some oyster mushrooms to add to the feast!
Ag & Water Desk reporter Bennet Goldstein (center) and local experts check out a dam breach at Jersey Valley, outside Cashton, Wisconsin.
We hung out with some of our favorite local journalists, who offered us tours, story ideas and advice. Tim Hundt (Jacob’s second cousin; small-town vibes) recently launched the Vernon Reporter, which is an all-star member of the Ag & Water Desk distribution network, republishing a ton of our stories.
Tim told us what a resource the Desk has been in this news desert, where local newspapers have been gutted over the decades.
He arranged a tour of several local dams, built for flood protection in the 1950s-1970s, that have reached their life expectancy. Local conservationists explained to us how they can’t afford to repair most dams and instead will have to remove them, endangering some downstream homes and properties. Watch for Maddy’s upcoming story on this issue!
We also saw the blown-out Jersey Valley dam, which failed in 2018, and heard about how increased rainfall is confronting these communities with existential threats.
It echoed many of the issues we highlighted in our first big Ag & Water Desk series, “When it Rains,” in October 2022.
From left to right: Bennet Goldstein, Wisconsin Watch; Tegan Wendland, Ag & Water Desk editor; Madeline Heim, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; and Chloe Johnson, Star Tribune, near Cashton, Wisconsin. Tegan and these three Desk reporters took a tour in late July a tour of Jersey Valley lake and dam, which breached in 2018 flooding.
The conversations around potential relocation sounded so similar to what people are saying from St. Louis and Illinois to New Orleans and coastal Louisiana.
It was a reminder that, although rural farmers and the Amish community in Wisconsin may look different, sound different and have different politics from many of the folks in the downstream communities we cover, many of the issues we face are the same, and they’re all interconnected.
And that’s the whole idea of the Ag & Water Desk – it’s why our recent story on Asian carp, by our reporter Elise Plunk at the Louisiana Illuminator in Baton Rouge, is getting tons of comments on local Facebook pages after it ran in the Vernon Reporter.
It’s why so many of the Midwest outlets in our network run our stories from the Southeast and Gulf, and vice versa.
It’s why, in our series Farm to Trouble, we fanned out across the watershed and beyond to explore these connections. And it’s why we love doing this work!
The 'dead zone, which is driven largely by farm pollution that flows from the Midwest through the Mississippi River watershed, is also bigger than scientists predicted this summer, imperiling marine life across nearly 4 million acres.
By Delaney Dryfoos, The Lens
Silver carp jump in the Fox River in Illinois. Credit: Ryan Hagerty/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service via Invasive Carp Regional Coordinating Committee
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has sent out long-awaited payments to minority farmers and others in need of aid, but some say it’s not enough to offset years of discrimination. Recipients of more than $2.2 billion in aid last week include 1,265 farmers from Louisiana, 13,000 in Mississippi, and 11,000 in Alabama.
By Eva Tesfaye, WWNO
Herman Johnson carries feed to cattle on his family farm near Lexington, Mississippi, on Nov. 9, 2023. Johnson's family applied for government aid for farmers who’ve faced discrimination. Credit: Imani Khayyam for the Ag & Water Desk
The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse has amassed photos, maps, journals and field notes telling the story of the upper Mississippi River river and the Driftless region that surrounds it. This beautiful hilly area is geologically unique -- it was untouched by glaciers that descended from Canada tens of thousands of years ago.
By Madeline Heim, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
David Mindel, digital collections librarian at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s Murphy Library, moves materials belonging to the library’s new Driftless River Initiative. Credit: Jen Towner, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
