The proposed merger between the Idaho-based grocery chain Albertsons and Kroger has antitrust laws in the spotlight, as the supermarket companies are already the two largest in the country.

Idaho has the third most Albertsons stores in the country, with 39 across the state. Announced in October, the merger has been under intense scrutiny.

Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, said the grocery industry is already consolidated, which hurts workers, small businesses and consumers.

"We've seen food production workers and farmers getting paid less for food, and we've seen consumers paying more for groceries," Mitchell observed. "What's happening is that you've got a small number of companies in the middle -- the middlemen, including the supermarket chains -- who are absorbing more and more of that spending for themselves."

Mitchell noted since the announcement of the merger, Congress has enacted what she calls the most significant antitrust legislation in 50 years. The Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act was passed in the government spending package in December. It lowers fees on smaller acquisitions and increases them for the largest mergers, raising more money for Congress to use to fund antitrust enforcement.

Mitchell pointed out consolidation especially is harmful for rural areas, which depend more on small and mid-sized businesses for their economy. She noted the country has seen a sharp decline in businesses of this type.

"Rural areas have been particularly hard hit by that because, if you're a small town, you don't have a corporate headquarters of a giant company, right?" Mitchell explained. "You rely naturally on smaller businesses and those businesses have really been hurt and squeezed by the monopoly problem that we're seeing."

The spending package also included the State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act, which makes it easier for state attorneys general litigating antitrust cases to remain in their selected courts.

Mitchell added the changes have support from lawmakers in both parties.

"We've seen this growing momentum in Congress to address antitrust, and it's bipartisan," Mitchell stressed. "That's one of the things that I think is striking in this moment, given the partisan divisions on just about any other issue you can think of."

With the cost of farmland up by more than 8% percent in North Carolina, the state's Black farmers are struggling to purchase additional acreage or jumpstart their farming dreams.

Demi Tucker, owner of Uyoga Farms and a fifth-generation Black farmer, grows mushrooms on her family's land in Steadman. She said most farmers she knows are leasing and looking to expand, but finding themselves competing with investors and corporations swooping up large tracts.

"If somebody has 23 acres to sell, they're going to sell it to the person who can buy out 23 acres and that half of an acre or an acre, which is what most people can afford starting off, " Tucker said.

According to Global AgInvesting, an estimated 26 to 35 billion dollars of farmland nationwide is owned by institutions or corporations.

Tucker pointed out after purchasing land, farmers also face additional costs to clear it, buy heavy machinery, and do soil and water testing. She said all of these obstacles add up for Black and Indigenous farmers who historically have faced discrimination qualifying for federal funding.

"There's a lot happening right now with the farm bill that's going to pass this year, a lot of advocacy going around as far as certain demands that we would like met so that more people of color can qualify for loans," Tucker added.

Over the past century nationwide, an estimated 98% of Black farmers were dispossessed through the denial of loans and credit, and through acts of violence and intimidation, according to Data for Progress.


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Farmers, ranchers and livestock producers are working with solar companies in Iowa to find multiple uses for land once used only to plant corn and soybeans.

Some are investing in what's known as "dual-use solar" or agrivoltaics. They are cultivating profitable crops, grazing livestock, even raising healthier honeybees, all in the shadows of solar panels. Farmers can grow clover and other highly pollinating grasses under the panels, and put beehives adjacent to those fields.

Lindsay Mouw, policy associate at the Center for Rural Affairs, said "solar beekeeping" is an example of how alternative energy interests and farmers cannot only coexist, but mutually benefit. She argued it will be a necessity as solar consumes more Iowa farmland.

"If we want to keep land in some type of agricultural production, while producing energy with solar, solar beekeeping or other dual-use solar practices are a great option to do that," Mouw explained.

Mouw pointed out the practice gives offers solar beekeepers diverse pollen sources for honey, which can then be sold as a specialty, locally grown product. Project developers benefit from the energy produced by the solar panels and nearby farmers profit from the bees' pollination services.

In addition to environmental benefits, local beekeepers see health benefits, too.

Joel Fassbinder, owner and operator of Highlandville Honey Farm in Winneshiek County, was raised in a beekeeping family and is in his ninth year of running his own operation. He said moving his bees away from traditional farms using pesticides has produced healthier bees.

"Being in Iowa, you're around conventional farming a lot, with spraying and stuff, and so, any chance to move them in a place where there might be less of that going on is a benefit," Fassbinder emphasized. "Also, the honey that they make is not only good tasting and light colored for human consumption, but bees consume it as well."

Backers of dual-use solar say it can provide new revenue streams for farmers, as well as avenues into ag production for people who want to farm or raise livestock on a smaller scale.

By Sky Chadde and Johnathan Heddinger for Investigate Midwest, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Illinois News Connection reporting for Investigate Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration.

In early 2019 in Illinois, a farmworker, his wife and his son lived in a moldy house. Attempting to keep the winter cold at bay, he'd spray-foamed the windows shut. The toilet often malfunctioned. Unlike most farmworker housing, it hadn't been inspected - the employer hadn't registered it with the state.

But the man had another option. He complained to a state employee whose job is to advocate for farmworkers' rights. A crucial component of the advocate's job is visiting fields and housing and forwarding complaints to law enforcement.

Several farmworkers a week were contacted through this outreach. Between 2018 and 2020, Illinois forwarded 10 complaints - ranging from being sprayed twice by pesticides to illegally garnishing wages for medical treatment - to authorities. For example, once the father in the moldy house complained, the state employee informed the U.S. Department of Labor.

However, when farmworkers likely needed this outreach most, Illinois stopped delivering it.

When COVID-19 hit, Illinois barred the outreach workers from traveling and assigned some to other duties, according to state and federal documents. Often living in crowded housing, farmworkers were particularly susceptible to COVID-19. Between the pandemic's first summer and summer 2022, the state contacted zero farmworkers. The state recorded one complaint.

The outreach workers in Illinois are part of a federal and state partnership known as the Monitor Advocate System. U.S. Department of Labor officials oversee state counterparts who are supposed to ensure their states protect farmworkers from unsafe housing, wage theft and other abuses. Outreach is only part of the system's duties, but it's an essential element.

A nationwide problem

The failings in Illinois echo across the country, according to internal program documents obtained by Investigate Midwest, and other state and federal records.

Consider:

* The pandemic either impaired or completely shut down required outreach to farmworkers. States are supposed to have full-time outreach staff during harvest season. Personnel at some local job centers - mainly known for providing career counseling and job referrals - also chip in.

But in the pandemic's first years, some states - including Illinois, Ohio and Kansas - closed job centers or reassigned staff. Across the country, the number of contacts with farmworkers fell, according to the system's latest annual report.

Meanwhile, more than 90,000 farmworkers contracted the virus, and at least 100 died during the pandemic, according to tracking by the Food and Environmental Reporting Network, a nonprofit newsroom.

* The monitor advocate system has convulsed with turnover in recent years. The system has about 60 positions: a national monitor advocate, six DOL officials overseeing states in different regions, an advocate in each state and some support staff. Since 2020, 37 people have cycled through the system, according to Investigate Midwest's review of staff directories.

Since 2020, four states, including Illinois, have had three different people employed in the monitor advocate role. Some who technically served in the role did not perform its duties full-time. For instance, between 2016 and 2018, Iowa's monitor advocate spent less than half of her time performing monitoring duties. (The state said this is currently not the case.)

Janie Claytor-Woodson, the longtime state monitor advocate for West Virginia who retired in 2020, said many monitor advocates she worked with were dedicated and caring individuals who had farmworkers' best interests in mind.

"Most of the people I worked with were outstanding. They took their jobs to heart," she said. But, she added, "You can't just put somebody in that seat. You got to have somebody who has some interest or background (with farmworkers). Otherwise, the program's going to suffer."

* Even before COVID-19, some states did not perform the required outreach to farmworkers. The year before the pandemic started, 16 states failed to do so, according to a recent annual report. The annual reports note little contact with farmworkers generally means fewer complaints.

Yu-Mon "Luis" Chang, Connecticut's state monitor advocate, said in a video for the National Center for Farmworker Health that frequent visits are essential to building trust with farmworkers. (He did not return repeated requests for an interview.)

"If you're just showing up once every two years to the farm, you're not going to gain the trust of the workers," he said. "But if they see you out there all the time, and they start talking to you, they'll get comfortable enough to disclose something that may be bothering them. That's the key."

In a statement to Investigate Midwest, the labor department said it disagreed with any characterization that the program wasn't successful. The statement said the oversight the monitor advocate system provides focuses on reviewing states' protections of farmworkers, the functionality of their complaint process and their compliance with regulations and directives: "This system is successful when Monitor Advocates effectively perform their specific duties," the statement reads.

On a national level, several of the performance indicators the labor department uses to determine the program's success are being met. But, the agency acknowledged, "state-level data shows that not all (local job centers) are meeting all measures."

The system's most recent annual report notes weekly contacts increased after the pandemic's first year. However, it reads, "it is critical to understand that the pre-pandemic contact rate may not have been adequate."

When asked what kind of accountability existed for states not meeting the required standards, the labor department said, "Continued non-compliance can result in (the agency) formally noting deficiencies in a monitoring report and requiring a corrective action plan. Most states can resolve compliance issues through these steps."

In more extreme cases, funding can be withheld, the agency said.

But, the labor department said, it was "not aware" of an instance where funding related to farmworker services was withheld.

For example, Indiana has been cited repeatedly since 2009 for inadequate outreach staff, according to a copy of the labor department's corrective action plan for the state. Indiana said it is "currently in compliance" with staffing regulations.

The Illinois Department of Employment Security, which houses Illinois's part of the monitor advocate system, originally said it would answer Investigate Midwest's questions about its role in the system and its decisions during the pandemic. It did not respond prior to publication.

The monitor advocate system was in the headlines recently because of a possible connection between its representative in Georgia and a human trafficking operation, according to reporting by USA TODAY.

The operation forced farmworkers to dig for onions with their bare hands, and to live in housing with limited plumbing and no safe water, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. According to testimony related to the case, the traffickers paid off a state official who inspected and approved farmworker housing.

The person who inspected housing was the state monitor advocate for Georgia, who retired in the wake of the DOJ's investigation. The advocate's sister was indicted in the DOJ's case, and several of his family members owned companies that employed farmworkers, USA TODAY reported.

The Georgia Department of Labor did not respond to requests for comment.

Chronic issues in farmworker housing

In an ongoing series on farmworker housing, Investigate Midwest is examining chronic issues and the systems created to uphold farmworker rights. Ensuring safe living conditions is not the Monitor Advocate System's only responsibility, but protecting farmworkers from substandard housing - an entrenched problem - has been part of its mission since its start.

Across the country, examples of poor housing abound. In Iowa, authorities have found housing with holes in the wall and floor. In Missouri, farmworkers were forced to live in an old jail. One farmworker complained to an advocacy group of living in an "iron chicken coop" with bunk beds.

"Farmworkers are one of the worst housed groups in the United States," said Lance George, director of research and information at the Housing Assistance Council, which studied the issue in 2002. "This is a group in the shadows."

Oversight and enforcement need to improve for conditions to change, said Antonio De Loera-Brust, communications director for United Farm Workers, a California labor union.

"There's one law on the books," he said. "There's another law in the fields."

Research, government data and previous reporting show farmworkers are also vulnerable to labor abuses, human trafficking and legal violations - necessitating a government position like the monitor advocate.