Our April 2014 piece for American Prospect, “Plowed Under,” looked at native grassland across America’s Western Corn Belt, which are being plowed under and replaced with row crops at an unprecedented rate. The story reached an audience of 625,000 and had more than 3,000 shares on social media.
Jane Black and Leah Douglas, in a FERN collaboration with The Washington Post, broke news on how an electronic payment system for SNAP benefits at farmers markets was floundering. A key vendor in this chain overseen by the USDA was about to exit the business, leaving 1,700 farmers markets with no way to process electronic SNAP benefits and many low-income recipients without access to fresh, local food.
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