In The News

1.27.26 - Sustain Rural Wisconsin Network

 Consolidation of Wisconsin’s livestock industry is in full swing. Lawyers and financiers cobble together behind-the-scenes deals with factory farms and local officials.  Follow the Money helps communities intervene in an opaque process that extracts local resources to enrich investors around the world. 

1.23.26 - Colorado Public Radio 

 Big tech plans to pay Texas "climate startup" $58.3 million to inject manure more than 6,000 feet below the surface, reaching rock formations it claims can lock away organic sludge for eons.

1.22.26 - Waste Dive  

 USDA paused the acceptance, processing and awarding of loan note guarantees to anaerobic digesters for up to 90 days while it conducts an investigation into loan delinquencies and project underperformance. 

11.18.25 - Food & Water Watch

"Across the United States, factory farms are turning into gas refineries, and California is paying them for it... While agriculture, fossil fuel, and financial giants swarm to benefit from these incentives, rural communities are being ignored and treated like sacrifice zones for misguided climate policy." 

10.30.25 Associated Press

"Six people who died at a Colorado dairy farm this summer were exposed to hydrogen sulfide gas, authorities said Thursday. The Weld County coroner’s office drew its conclusions from autopsies and toxicology tests." 

9.16.25 Press Release

Two Wisconsin biogas deals have run into major financial distress. Their troubles mount, even as the recently passed federal tax law expands support for Renewable Natural Gas projects linked to large livestock operations. Deals like these raise questions about investor stability and the future of factory farm-driven biogas development in rural Wisconsin.

6.11.25 Press Release

It may be impossible to figure out how mega-dairy owner Robert Zahn got the tiny Town of Gillett, Wi to finance a factory farm gas deal with an Australian finance giant for $41,585,000. But according to a June 2 securities filing, first reported by Bloomberg Law, the deal's now in default and investors are looking for a $1.7 million principal payment.

6.4.25 - Andrew Harrington - Pierce County Journal 

Area residents gathered in Bay City to hear from GrassRoots Organizing Western Wisconsin (GROWW) leaders on the contested Ridge Breeze Dairy expansion permit’s status and the latest news with the previously pondered $18 million public bond to fund it."

4.19.25 - Evan Halper & Samuel Oakford, Washington Post

Small farmers, environmental advocates and scholars in Missouri and elsewhere say California’s Tax credits perpetuate noxious, environmentally hazardous and agriculturally unsound practices in other states. Wisconsin Mega-Dairies are using the tax credits to finance giant expansions.

4.2.25 - Midwest Farm Report

WI Farm Bureau wants the whole state to be a sacrifice zone for mega-livestock factories. Towns passing ordinances in Western Wisconsin are facing a mega-dairy proposal for up to 7,800 cows spreading more than 80 million gallons of waste in three counites and 17 towns.  State regulations don't cover air pollution, biosecurity, mass mortalities or road damage.

4.9.25 - Pierce County Journal 

Two dozen bankers and lawyers could receive more than a quarter-million dollars in fees from a proposed $18 million publicly-financed loan for Ridge Breeze's mega-dairy expansion. If Ridge Breeze gets their way, these fees will go to outsiders from Alabama, Missouri, Minnesota and Milwaukee.

1.17.25 - Danielle Kaeding, Wisconsin Public Radio 

A judge has dismissed a Polk County case that challenged a local ordinance regulating large farms. The order comes as more communities have sought local control over concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs.