FIRST PLACE — Sky Chadde, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting; Rachel Axon, Kyle Bagenstose, Kevin Crowe, USA Today

‘They think workers are like dogs.’ How pork plant execs sacrificed safety for profits. — 11/11/2020

HONORABLE MENTION

Georgina Gustin, Inside Climate News
Wealthy Nations Are Eating Their Way Past the Paris Agreement’s Climate Targets — 7/16/2020


Emily Unglesbee, DTN Progressive Farmer — Seed Treatment Confusion: Planting blind: Why some farmers don’t know what’s on their seeds — 3/27/2020

SECOND PLACE — Jessica Fargen Walsh,
The [Omaha] World-Herald

Nebraska towns pay millions to fight nitrates as water bills go up — 5/1/2020

THIRD PLACE — Johnathan Hettinger,
Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting

‘Buy it or else’: Inside Monsanto and BASF’s moves to force dicamba on farmers — 12/4/2020

FIRST PLACE — Susan Ferriss & Joe Yerardi,
The Center for Public Integrity

Trump attacks them. COVID-19 threatens them. But immigrants keep the U.S. fed — 9/28/2020

HONORABLE MENTION

Sierra Dawn McClain, Capital Press
Mint to be: Northwest mint farmers endure deadly fungi and foreign competition — 3/26/2020

William DeKay, The Western Producer
Old grain elevator ready to rock: Sask. band turns prairie skyscraper into a rehearsal space and venue where local musicians can hold private concerts — 12/3/2020

Allan Dawson, Manitoba Co-operator
Labelle looks back on pulse sector career — 7/30/2020

— Helena Bottemiller Evich, Politico
USDA let millions of pounds of food rot while food-bank demand soared — 4/26/2020

— Donnell Alexander, The Guardian US and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project
’We wanted to work the land with our kids’: The Black US farmers reclaiming the soil — 12/22/2020

SECOND PLACE — Leah Douglas, The Food & Environment Reporting Network

At the nation’s largest student farm organization, a reckoning on race — 9/8/2020

THIRD PLACE — Pamela Smith
DTN/Progressive Farmer

Time to Make Hay: This Kansas farmer bales up a niche of his own — July 2020

FIRST PLACE — Chris Clayton, DTN/Progressive Farmer

Coronavirus Hits Packing Plants: Two Iowa Plants Suspend Operations as Packing Industry Sees More Positive COVID-19 Cases — 4/6/2020

HONORABLE MENTION

Alice Mannette, The Hutchinson [Kansas] News

Kansans buying meat, dairy in large quantities — 3/18/2020

SECOND PLACE — Gil Gullickson, Successful Farmer

Bader Farms Wins $265 Million Judgment in Dicamba Lawsuit Against Bayer, BASF — 2/14/2020

THIRD PLACE — Mikkel Pates, Agweek

US Attorney charges Minn. Farmer with cheating elevator — 6/22/2020

FIRST PLACE — Sierra McClain, Capital Press

Flying farmer: One man’s journey to reach new heights on the farm and in the clouds — 7/9/2020

HONORABLE MENTION

— Des Keller, DTN/Progressive FarmerIn Family We Trust: A history of supporting one another and seeking outside experts helps keep this farm business moving forward — 1/01/2020

— Sean Pratt, The Western Producer
Wild rice business takes family for wild ride — 11/5/2020

— Jonathan Knutson, Agweek
Farm, Teach, Promote: Woman with a variety of jobs prepares to promote US wheat worldwide — 12/14/2020

— Alice Mannette, The Hutchinson [Kansas] News
One man’s mission is to save the turkey by opening a school for fowl — 11/21/2020

SECOND PLACE — Chris Clayton, DTN/Progressive Farmer

Grappling With a New Farm: Young, Black, First-Generation American Determined to Succeed as a Farm Owner — 8/24/2020

THIRD PLACE — Gil Gullickson, Successful Farming

Mother Nature Rules. So why not follow her lead? That’s how Seth Watkins revamped his farm’s system — 3/9/2020

FIRST PLACE — Bart Pfankuch
and Nick Lowrey, South Dakota News Watch

Regulatory gaps and missed opportunities allowed COVID-19 to spread freely in U.S. meatpacking plants — 4/29/2020

HONORABLE MENTION

Jessica McKenzie, The Counter
What does a vertical farm taste like? — 9/22/2020


Gabriel Popkin, Food & Environment Reporting Network
Is carbon farming a climate boon, or boondoggle? — 3/31/2020

Joel Reichenberger, DTN/Progressive Farmer
Operation Evolution: The tractor cab may be in for a makeover, realigning for a future as a rolling office when driving is an afterthought — 7/1/2020

Des Keller, Successful Farming
Hemp Takes Hold: Farmers and industry hustle to ramp up production to keep up with demand — 1/01/2020

SECOND PLACE — Jessica Fu, The Counter

Scientists are trying to make crops love salt — 3/26/2020

THIRD PLACE — Laurie Bedord, Successful Farming

Hope for Hemp: Minnesota grower shares 10 lessons learned after Year One of growing hemp for CBD extraction — 4/01/2020

FIRST PLACE — Pamela Smith, DTN/Progressive Farmer

Editor’s Notebook: Heartache and Hope — 4/30/2020

HONORABLE MENTION

Laura Rance, Winnipeg Free Press
Report reveals rapid shift in food business — 12/12/2020

SECOND PLACE — Greg Horstmeier, DTN/Progressive Farmer

Editor’s Notebook: The Answer, My Friend … — 8/13/2020

THIRD PLACE — Ed White, The Western Producer

Canadian agriculture deserves a true export policy — 7/23/2020

FIRST PLACE — Ed White, The Western Producer

Percy and me — 10/7/2020
Resiliency is a great idea, until you have to pay for it — 11/26/2020
2020: The year food mattered — 12/20/2020

HONORABLE MENTION

Urban Lehner, DTN/Progressive Farmer

AN URBAN’S RURAL VIEW
Thoughts on Rat Restaurants, Wet Markets and Repressive Governments — 2/20/2021
If Ever There Was a Time to Borrow Big, It's Now — 5/12/2020
Beware of Chinese Bearing Seeds — 8/10/2020

SECOND PLACE — Pamela Smith Production Blog, DTN/Progressive Farmer

Time to Take Care of Your Personal Condition — 3/27/2020
A Sort of Serious Love Story — 4/13/2020
To the Field With Food and Love — 10/16/2020

THIRD PLACE — Matthew Wilde, DTN/Progressive Farmer

Time to Trade? — 3/31/2020
Life Automatically Moves Forward — 5/15/2020
Don't Sacrifice Safety for Speed During Weather Delays — 11/3/2020

FIRST PLACE — Greg Hillyer, DTN/Progressive Farmer

Lessons From a Pandemic — 6/01/2020

HONORABLE MENTION

Laura Rance, Winnipeg Free Press
Value role of every link in food supply chain — 6/6/2020

Allan Dawson, Manitoba Co-operator
Farmer-owned AAFC? — 8/27/2020

SECOND PLACE — Urban Lehner, DTN/Progressive Farmer

An Industrial Policy Lincoln Would Like — 7/20/2020

THIRD PLACE — Jennifer Latzke, High Plains Journal

Lack of child care makes the rural house of cards wobbly — 11/23/2020

FIRST PLACE — Bart Pfankuch and Nick Lowrey,
South Dakota News Watch

Coverage of COVID impacts on South Dakota ag industry

Beef producers in S.D. reeling from COVID-19 epidemic and price irregularities — 3/23/2020

Ethanol industry and corn growers in S.D. facing economic ‘bloodbath’ due to COVID-19 — 4/6/2020

Closure of Smithfield and other plants forces S.D. pork producers to consider desperate measures — 4/21/2020

Special Report: Regulatory gaps and missed opportunities allowed COVID-19 to spread freely in U.S. meatpacking plants — 4/29/2020

Special Report: Small towns in S.D. facing big challenges amid pandemic and historic declines — 6/16/2020

Special Report: Pandemic threatens fragile rural health-care system in South Dakota — 6/24/2020

Pandemic increases demand for locally grown foods but small S.D. producers can’t keep up — 7/22/2020

S.D. sheep farmers hurting as pandemic reduces demand and processing capacity — 9/21/2020

CDC report on Smithfield COVID-19 outbreak in Sioux Falls was redone with ‘watered down’ safety recommendations — 10/2/2020

HONORABLE MENTION

Sierra Dawn McClain, Capital Press Coverage of aftermath of Southern Oregon wildfires

Rising from Rubble: In the aftermath of fires, Southern Oregon faces a human, and economic, tragedy — 9/8/2020

New study: Cattle grazing significantly reduces wildfire spread — 9/9/2020

After the fires: Farm animals face long-term feed shortages — 11/6/2020



Emily Unglesbee, DTN/Progressive Farmer Coverage of dicamba EPA case and impact

Dicamba Registrations Vacated: The Ninth Circuit Vacates Three Dicamba Registrations — 6/3/2020

Dicamba Legal Update: Here's What We Know About the Legal Status of Dicamba — 6/4/2020

Weed Control Minus Dicamba: Xtend Weed Control Options Without Dicamba — 6/5/2020

The States of Dicamba: States Enter Uncertain Legal Territory With Conflicting Dicamba Decisions — 6/8/2020

EPA Dicamba Cancellation: EPA Issues Cancellation Orders for Three Dicamba Herbicides — 6/8/2020

The Future of Dicamba: Dicamba Use Faces Trio of Threats: Courts, Weeds and Farmer Fatigue — 7/14/2020

EPA Registers Dicamba Again: EPA Approves Three Dicamba Herbicides With Federal Cutoff Dates — 10/27/2020

New Dicamba Labels: A Breakdown of Changes to the 2020 Dicamba Labels — 10/29/2020

EPA, States Clash Over Pesticides: EPA Throws Up Roadblock to State Restrictions on Dicamba, Other Pesticides – 11/6/2020

States Mull 2021 Dicamba Limits: Some States Working to Further Restrict Dicamba in 2021 — 12/8/2020

SECOND PLACE — Johnathan Hettinger, Midwest Center for Investigating Reporting

Coverage of dicamba EPA court case

In 2020, ag community has ‘to prove to society’ it can safely spray dicamba — 3/11/2020

‘We’ve got it everywhere’: Dicamba damaging trees across Midwest and South — 6/16/2020

New Bayer-engineered seed raises questions among experts on the future of weed control — 7/3/2020

EPA documents show dicamba damage worse than previously thought — 10/29/2020

‘Buy it or else’: Inside Monsanto and BASF’s moves to force dicamba on farmers — 12/4/2020

THIRD PLACE — Jessica Fu and H. Claire Brown, The Counter

Coverage of Farmers to Families Food Box Program

“Someone’s profiting off this”: New public records reveal Covid-19 hunger relief contractors get handsome payouts for mediocre food boxes — 9/3/2020

Mapping Trump’s food boxes: More than 1,000 counties received no aid in May and June, while some organizations received 9 truckloads a day — 9/8/2020

“Please take a moment to thank Jehovah”: Churches distributing USDA food boxes are blurring the boundaries between church and state — 9/29/2020

FIRST PLACE — Center for Public Integrity, Grist and The World Joe Wertz, Jamie Smith Hopkins, Nathanael Johnson ‘Growing Food, Sowing Troubles’ — Fertilizer pollution

Farming’s Growing Problem: Fertilizers are contaminating and warming the planet. Regulators haven’t acted on decades-old warnings — 1/22/2020

Lake Erie turns toxic every summer. Officials aren’t cracking down on the source — 1/23/2020

We’re not fixing this environmental crisis. One ditch in Indiana could provide a solution. — 1/30/2020

HONORABLE MENTION

Jeff MacGregor, Smithsonian Magazine
It is here. And it is hungry: Can scientists stop the plague of the spotted lanternfly? 10/2020


Johnathan Hettinger, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
Dicamba on Trial — Daily coverage (archives)

Dicamba on trial: Internal docs show Monsanto, BASF prepared for drift complaints prior to dicamba launch, 1/27/2020

Dicamba on trial: Monsanto officials limited testing on its own plots, 1/31/2020

Dicamba on trial: Monsanto officials testified dicamba may drift, but not enough to harm crops, 1/31/2020

‘Buy it or else’: Inside Monsanto and BASF’s moves to force dicamba on farmers, 12/4/2020

SECOND PLACE — Sky Chadde, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, and Kyle Bagensose, Veronica Martinez Jaboco and Rachel Avon, USA Today Toll of COVID-19 on meatpacking workers

Tracking Covid-19’s impact on meatpacking workers and industry, 4/16/2020

Cheap chicken, beef came at a cost. How American meat plants bred coronavirus hot spots, 5/22/2020

‘All smoke and mirrors’: How Trump’s meatpacking order has failed to keep workers safe, 6/18/2020

‘They think workers are like dogs.’ How pork plant execs sacrificed safety for profits, 11/11/2020

THIRD PLACE — Leah Douglas Food & Environment
Reporting Network Mapping Covid-19

Mapping Covid-19 outbreaks in the food system, 4/22/2020