The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "dairy industry" ...
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Dairyland Diversity
Wisconsin's dairy industry has seen an influx of immigrant laborers in recent years. While the workers have contributed to growth in the industry, they have also put the farmers in potential legal peril.
Tags: farmer; dairy; immigrant; illegal; immigration; rural; Wisconsin
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Hidden Wells, Dirty Water
An investigation into groundwater contamination in the heavily agricultural Lower Yakima Valley found that local, state and federal agencies responsible for clean drinking water and environmental health repeatedly neglected their regulatory duties. This left low-income Latino farm workers exposed to health threats.
Tags: dairy industry; water; agriculture; Latino; contamination; nitrate; wells; environment
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Toxic Fumes, Blisters and Brain Damage
This story examines a link between the toxic fumes produced by the largest dairy farm in New York state, called Willet Dairy, and the health problems suffered by its neighbors.
Tags: toxic fumes; dairy industry; New York state; dairy farms; factory farms; cows
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Hidden Horrors: California Dairy Workers Face Danger and Abuse
Workers in California's dairy industry generally live and work in the same place, and therefore do not speak out about poor working conditions for fear of losing their homes and/or their jobs. Rose Arrieta finds that in 2001, Cal OSHA investigated the state's dairies following the deaths of two workers. Fines were handed down, but there have been no inspections since then. Arrieta discovers that these workers are "modern-day slaves." Workers who aren't working at a "satisfactory" pace are beaten, those with injuries are told to work or they won't get paid, and some are threatened by their employers if the worker complains to legal authorities about inadequate pay.
Tags: dairy industry; California OSHA; Marin County; Sonoma County; human rights abuse; civil righs abuse; Department of Food and Agriculture
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"Downer Cow Controversy"
This investigation began by raising questions about the lack of federal inspection outside a slaughterhouse and the treatment of cows. Particularly it raised questions about health risks involving "downer" cows -- weak, sick or crippled dairy cows processed into beef for the kitchen table. The state's beef and dairy commissions, state agencies funded by fees attached to beef and dairy products, criticized the station's reports. The television station was tried in abstentia by the Washington News Council and found to have been unfair to the beef industry. The station earlier had refused to participate in the arbitration, saying its reports were accurate and that the council itself is partial. On Dec. 23, the first U.S. case of mad cow was announced. The animal was a downer cow processed at the same slaughterhouse that was the subject of the station's initial investigation.
Tags: beef; cattle; mad cow; downer cows; USDA; dairy; E. coli; food safety; meat-packing plants; slaughterhouse
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No title (id: 13886)
"Dairy Disaster" unravels an elaborate money laundering scheme that lined the pockets of three businessmen and left Michigan dairy farmers holding the bill. When a Texas businessman and an Oklahoma oil man took over the Pinconning Cheese Plant; they promised a "Field of Dreams." Instead, they bounced more than 2-million dollars worth of checks to Michigan farmers devastating the dairy industry. These same businessmen had pulled the same scheme at a plant in Idaho, where they were being sued. (January 29, 30; September 11, 1996)
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No title (id: 13484)
PR Watch looks at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the multi-billion dollar animal livestock industry in their cooperation in a PR cover-up of Mad Cow Disease. Although reports of a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) disease showed up in dairy herds in the United States as early as 1985, the public never became fully aware of diseased cows or their links to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) until 1996.
Tags: It's a mad; mad; mad; mad cow world Livestock Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) FOIA 7 pgs.