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Chas Sisk,
Editorial Director
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I kept coming back to the pair of stories on soybean farming that the Desk published in December. Not only did we hear about how trade wars are affecting American farmers — a subject already getting substantial coverage. We also learned about the ripple effects downriver on Gulf ports, across the Caribbean on farmers in Brazil, over the Andes on docks in Chile, and across the ocean to policymakers in Beijing. Add it all up: The Desk was able to show that this isn't just a temporary hit to one crop; it's a tectonic shift in the country's agricultural sector.
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I will admit to having a soft spot for a smart business story. My parents owned a grocery store on Main Street in a small town in South Carolina as I was growing up, and that led me to begin my journalism career as a business reporter. But what really excites me as a journalist is the opportunity to connect dots — across state lines and sometimes across international borders. It's what drew me to the Ag & Water Desk, and it's thrilling to contemplate our potential to do more of that work in 2026.
Already, we at the Desk are planning to go deep on data centers this year. Many people may know what's been announced in their own community or state, but few grasp the scale of these projects across the Basin and nationwide. We're also looking into small-town water districts, many of which are struggling with aging infrastructure and declining customer bases. And we're actively working on human interest stories, like an effort to give farmers more of a voice in land use decisions, and stories about public health, like the debate over how to respond to chronic wasting disease in deer.
Producing this journalism is a great team of reporters and partner organizations that stretches from North Dakota to New Orleans. I hope you'll be as excited to read (and hear and watch) the Desk's work in 2026 as I will be to edit it.
Sincerely,
Chas Sisk
Editorial Director,
Ag & Water Desk
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Fields of Sinsinawa soil advisor Rick Bieber smells the soil used for cover crops that dairy cows graze on. From Madeline Heim's piece on religion and conservation. Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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In Case You Missed It
While I have you, I'd also like to highlight a few recent stories involving the Desk that haven't been featured yet in our newsletters:
📿 Madeline Heim of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel interviewed five environmental activists, from people leading ecumenical groups to passionate individuals, about how their faith motivates their work. At a time of year when people are often thinking about the intersection of belief and activism, you'll enjoy these mini-profiles — even if you don't happen to live in Wisconsin.
🏭 Delaney Nolan of The Lens reports on a plan to build a petrochemical complex in Ascension Parish, La. The proposal is expected to displace the unincorporated community of Modeste, where a predominantly Black community has lived for generations.
🎉 We're pleased to have been named, through our membership in the Climate News Task Force, as one of the Center for Cooperative Media's top 10 collaboratives of 2025. The task force draws together a dozen journalism organizations nationwide.
💡In November, the Desk's Hector Alejandro Arzate reported on the potential loss of a tool that tracks billion-dollar disasters. That tool survived, and now Climate Central has produced a new analysis that finds 2025 had the third-most billion-dollar weather and climate disasters.
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Thanks for your support!
Finally, a note of thanks to everyone who donated to our end-of-year fundraising campaign. We were able to secure our match through NewsMatch and raised more than $13,000 for the Desk. We couldn't do this work without your generosity.
That's it for now. More next week from across the Basin.
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