NEW: Top meatpackers Tyson and Smithfield drafted the executive order eventually signed by Trump in April 2020 to keep meat plants running during the early months of the Covid pandemic, found a House report out today.

My story TK. Read the report here: coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrat… The companies sent the draft to USDA officials and corresponded extensively with the White House, USDA, and other administration officials before the order was finalized and signed on April 28, the report found.

NEW: Black farmers lost $326 billion in land during the 20th century, finds a new study that is the first to quantify the compounded value of Black agricultural land loss.

My latest: reuters.com/world/us/us-bl… The study, led by @DaniaFrancis and published in an economics journal, calculated the compounded value of acres lost to Black farmers between 1920 and 1997.

Land loss contributed to the racial wealth gap and has marred the relationship between USDA and farmers of color.

After nearly 500 days of data, today I made the final update to FERN's Covid-19 mapping project. In 17 months of reporting, I counted nearly 100,000 Covid-19 cases and 466 deaths among workers in farm fields, food processing plants, and slaughterhouses. (1/) When this project first began in March 2020, I thought it might produce a one-time infographic. It turned into a massive investigation that supported dozens of stories and synthesized data that wasn't being collected by any federal agency. (2/)

I just opened my Sunday NYT to see a full page ad from @SmithfieldFoods accusing its “critics” (e.g. the press, at least in part) of spreading “false narratives,” “misinformation,” and “disinformation” about its Covid-19 response. I have, unsurprisingly, some thoughts on that. By my count, at least 2,024 Smithfield workers have contracted Covid-19 since the pandemic began. At least 6 have died. These are both certainly undercounts, as Smithfield and states with major Smithfield plants have declined to share recent data.

Two months ago today, I began mapping Covid-19 in the food system. Since then, the number of cases has grown steadily to over 32,000. Sadly, there is little sign that this trend is slowing.

Here’s a thread with more from my latest analysis for @FERNnews: thefern.org/2020/06/covid-… @FERNnews Cases among meatpacking, food processing, and farmworkers are all still rising. These figures are cumulative, meaning good news would look like a significant plateau on this trend line. We’re not seeing that.

NEW: I’ve been mapping outbreaks of Covid-19 in the food system since April 22. In my latest story for @FERNnews, I crunched all that data and made 9 charts to help demonstrate the spread of the virus among food chain workers.

A thread…
thefern.org/2020/05/charti… @FERNnews When I first published our map of Covid-19 outbreaks in the food system on April 22, there were about 1,950 cases among meatpacking, food processing, and farmworkers.

Today, there are over 16,400 — a more than eight-fold increase in less than a month. 66 workers have died.

ICYMI last night, I broke a story about a big update in a chicken price-fixing case. Why does it matter? A quick ~thread~. 🐥thefern.org/ag_insider/jus… This will be the first time that many hear that the DOJ has a grand jury investigation ongoing into the poultry sector. That was revealed in a Tyson quarterly filing in May, but not much has been known about the probe.