Katie Peikes
Reporter, Iowa Public RadioI report on agriculture and rural issues for Harvest Public Media from Ames, Iowa and am based at Iowa Public Radio.
I’ve been with Iowa Public Radio since July 2018. Before moving over to the agriculture beat in January 2021, I was IPR’s first-ever western Iowa reporter, based in Sioux City. I covered the 2019 Missouri River Flooding and the 2020 Iowa caucuses, among other things.
I previously reported on the environment, agriculture and rural issues at Delaware Public Media, tackling stories on water quality, climate change and the poultry industry. Before that, I cut my teeth at a newspaper in northern Utah, where I covered local government and education. I am originally from a suburb of Hartford, Connecticut.
You can contact me at kpeikes@iowapublicradio.org or through Twitter @kpeikes.
-
From Iowa to Oklahoma to Kansas, universities are working more closely with agribusiness in search of ways to pay for projects where tax dollars have become more scarce. Critics worry that agriculture schools might focus more on industry than the public interest.
-
Large donors can put universities in potentially awkward positions when faculty conclusions conflict with the interests of those benefactors. Data collected by Harvest Public Media and Investigate Midwest show corporations have given at least $170 million to ag colleges in the past decade.
-
Surging fertilizer prices are putting pressure on farmers as they start to look to the next planting season, and altering whether the plant corn or soybeans next spring.
-
Mexico is phasing out genetically modified corn for human consumption by 2024. But U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said he's been assured by his Mexican counterpart that the ban won't shut off the biggest international customer for U.S. corn.
-
Meat processors and agriculture officials are making sure they’re prepared against a highly contagious swine disease.