Series on agribusiness donations to Midwestern university ag programs is a finalist for investigative reporting award

Bayer Crop Science Innovation Center, University of Illinois

UPDATE, June 23: The series won first prize in the category.

"Big Ag U", a series last year by Investigate Midwest and Harvest Public Media, has been named a finalist in the 2022 Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Awards for Investigative Reporting by small newsrooms. The series looked at the money major agribusinesses had given four major university agriculture programs and the influence it bought. Public universities "have cultivated powerful agricultural corporations as donors while public funding has stagnated," they reported.

From 2010 to 2022, the corporations have given at least $170 million to ag programs at the University of Illinois, Iowa State University, Oklahoma State University and the University of Missouri. The reporters said they couldn't get records from several other universities, which cited state privacy laws.

"That corporate money has paid for research centers and specific studies at universities," they reported. "For decades, the federal government funded much of the research and development into agriculture, and not just on campuses. But that changed around the 2008 financial crisis. Soon after, the private sector became the dominant spender," according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "USDA noted private research tends to focus on things that boost revenues over developments that could help the public at large."

Donors' influence could limit the scope of university research, said Gabrielle Roesch-McNally, who advocates for women’s ownership with the American Farmland Trust. The University of Illinois said it believes “strongly in researchers conducting and sharing their work without influence from internal or external entities.” The series reported on complaints that Monsanto, a major donor now owned by Bayer, made about individual researchers at Illinois; administrators defended the researchers and won the company's support for an expended research center, now named for Bayer.

Investigate Midwest says its mission is to expose "dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions." The Driehaus Foundation is based in Chicago and focuses on the quality of the built environment but also promotes arts and culture, economic opportunity for the working poor and investigative journalism for government accountability.