John McCracken

1 week ago | iowacapitaldispatch.com | John McCracken |Investigate Midwest

by John McCracken | Investigate Midwest, Iowa Capital Dispatch May 4, 2025 When a poultry farm tests positive for bird flu, the clock starts. Within the first 72 hours, farmers start depopulating, an industry term for killing contaminated flocks. Despite the sweltering heat inside the barns, hired workers wear gloves, face masks and other protective equipment and repetitively pick up flailing, sick chickens and place them into a metal container filled with carbon dioxide.

1 week ago | southernminn.com | John McCracken |Investigate Midwest

kA DEJ=6lQ7@?E\D:K6i`aAIjQmp 4@>>6C4:2= EFC<6J 7=@4< :D <:==65 FD:?8 7@2>] W!9@E@ AC@G:565 3J s2? w@F86?E@8=6CXk^AmkAm(96? 2 A@F=ECJ 72C> E6DED A@D:E:G6 7@C 3:C5 7=F[ E96 4=@4< DE2CED]k^AmkAm(:E9:? E96 7:CDE fa 9@FCD[ 72C>6CD DE2CE 56A@AF=2E:?8[ 2?

2 weeks ago | investigatemidwest.org | John McCracken |Investigate Midwest

When a poultry farm tests positive for bird flu, the clock starts. Within the first 72 hours, farmers start depopulating, an industry term for killing contaminated flocks. Despite the sweltering heat inside the barns, hired workers wear gloves, face masks and other protective equipment and repetitively pick up flailing, sick chickens and place them into a metal container filled with carbon dioxide. In a few minutes, the chickens are dead.

1 month ago | investigatemidwest.org | John McCracken |Investigate Midwest

Nearly half of all child labor violations in the agriculture industry since 1995 have occurred in grain, fruit and vegetable farming. A review of Department of Labor data reveals these crop production sectors have consistently topped violations over the past two decades. Other major sectors of the agriculture industry with violations in the past two decades include baked goods manufacturers, meatpacking companies and contract companies that hire temporary labor for agricultural production.

1 month ago | sentientmedia.org | John McCracken |Investigate Midwest

This story was originally published on Investigate Midwest. The chickens do not slow down. Workers hang featherless bodies upside down onto hooks, cut the limbs and wings off the birds, and automated machines separate viscera from meat, slicing through 144 chickens a minute. Duvan Tomas Perez’s job was to sanitize the machines that remove chicken’s bones and organs at the Mar-Jac Poultry plant in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where over 100 million birds are slaughtered each year.