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Anna Pope
Reporter, KOSUI cover agriculture and rural affairs for Harvest Public Media for KOSU in Oklahoma.
I grew up listening to KOSU and joined the public radio station in 2023 as a corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative that places emerging journalists in newsrooms across the country.
Born and raised in Oklahoma, I earned a bachelor’s degree in multimedia journalism from Oklahoma State University in 2022. After graduating from the university, I covered the impact of population growth as a Report for America corps member for KUAF public radio in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
You can reach me at anna@kosu.org.
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The Biden Administration is proposing a new rule that aims to help protect about 36 million employees, including agriculture workers, from extreme heat. Advocates say the rule is long overdue.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s SUN Bucks doles out $40 per month over the summer for each eligible child. This is the first year for the program, and it's expected to reach about 21 million kids. Yet 13 states, including Oklahoma and Iowa, turned down the funding.
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It’s National Pollinator Week, an annual event created to bring attention to the sharp decline in pollinator numbers due to habitat loss, pesticide use and climate change. Butterflies often capture people’s attention and help spark interest in pollinator conservation, something butterfly farms are helping promote.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service recently announced it is discontinuing a few market surveys due to budget cuts. Some lawmakers and industry groups have expressed concern and want the decision to be reversed.
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A recent report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found working-age rural residents die from natural causes at a higher rate than their urban counterparts. And that gap has widened over the years.
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This year, wildfires have already burned thousands of acres in the Great Plains. Dry conditions and unseasonably warm temperatures have optimal settings for wildfires, and some experts say they are seeing more intense fires.
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Raising roosters is big business. Now a push to ease penalties for cockfighting is ruffling feathersCockfighting, the practice of fighting roosters, has been around for centuries. In the U.S. it’s a federal crime and illegal in all 50 states. But in Oklahoma, there’s an effort to lower the penalties for cockfighting that breeders say simply protects their right to raise roosters, while animal rights groups are calling foul.