A team of eight undergraduate journalism students at the University of Missouri School of Journalism collaborated on the Waste Land project, published in the Columbia Missourian on June 5, 2024. Spurred by community complaints about dumping of waste from meatpacking plants onto farm fields in southwest Missouri, the team investigated the loose regulations around what’s considered to be free fertilizer.
Our investigation found that America’s farmland has become a dumping ground. Industrial food waste and sewage sludge are being spread on millions of acres nationwide.
The Midwest is stuffed with meatpacking plants, and all that offal needs to go somewhere. Thanks to light state regulations, that waste was being dumped into open pits not far from Missouri’s cherished spring-fed trout streams. Farmers who accepted the waste got paid, and the material could be spread on their land as free fertilizer, but neighbors complained about the smell and runoff.
As our team pressed state officials, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources halted new lagoons and declared others would have to be emptied, and state legislators passed a law tightening the rules.
The scope of the project grew nationally as we investigated sludge from wastewater treatment plants, which is spread on millions of acres of farmland. While the waste does contain nutrients, it also contains emerging contaminants like pharmaceuticals, microplastics and the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS.
Sadly, many farmers didn’t know what they were getting in their “free fertilizer.” We found multiple instances in other states where farms had to be closed due to sludge contamination. Our reporting found that most state and federal agencies had done nothing to protect farmers, the environment, or the food raised on the land.
