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For at least a decade, the University of Florida has depended on the labor of incarcerated people to run their agricultural research farms. That labor has been essential to powering research on specialty and commodity crops — information that eventually lands in the hands of farmers across the state.

Relying on prison labor has saved the university millions of dollars, and, in the past, the university emphasized that these work programs also benefited incarcerated people as skills training. But in June 2020 — at the height of protests demanding racial justice — UF announced it was ending its contracts with prisons and jails.

While many activists and students breathed a sigh of relief, university researchers and prison officials were left scrambling to replace the essential workforce. Incarcerated people who worked the fields are caught in the middle — no longer a part of what activists call an exploitative program, but without access to the freedoms that came with a day outside on the farm.

This four-part series by The Marjorie and Southerly investigates the complicated and entrenched relationship UF and some other public universities in the U.S. South have with prisons and jails. We examine the conflicting messaging from officials and experts, the severe lack of data available to assess the benefits universities and prison officials tout, and the ways in which work programs for incarcerated people could be more beneficial to them by paying them fair wages, improving working conditions, and offering better and more useful training for jobs after their release.

Read part 1: The ‘symbolism’ of slavery

Read part 2: Powered by prisons

Read part 3: A lack of data

Read part 4: ‘A greater systemic problem’

This was truly a group effort, with reporting by Hannah O. Brown, Becca Burton, Anna Hamilton, Carly Berlin, and me. Support more projects like this and become a Southerly member.

-Lyndsey Gilpin
Founder, Editor-in-Chief

Tractor tills wheat at the IFAS Plant Science Research and Education Unit in Citra, Florida. Photo by Josh Wickham, UF/IFAS

Stories worth your time

With support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Carly Berlin is reporting on the aftermath of Hurricanes Laura and Delta, which hit southwest Louisiana hard. The first in her three-part series is this piece on how community leaders and election officials in Lake Charles are trying to get out the vote during the state's early voting period, which ends Oct. 27. That's difficult, because thousands of people are still displaced from the storms, staying in hotels scattered across the state or with family and friends from Texas to Mississippi to Illinois. “This is like a well-organized voter suppression that actually was caused by a natural disaster,” said Tasha Guidry, founder of Lake Charles Black Business Owners. Katie Sikora took photos.

(If you're in southwest Louisiana and have been displaced or had your home damaged by the storms, please fill out this confidential tip form and/or share it with your friends and family.)

Canopy Atlanta just released its first issue, about the city's West End neighborhood. It's an amazing model: more than 50 West End residents gave feedback on story choices, an advisory board refined angles, and fellows —West End residents trained in journalism—helped staff produce it. Read their story with Scalawag on Black farmers in the area.

After months of reporting and public records wrangling, Ev Crunden published a three-part series with Waste Dive on how the waste and recycling industries are trying to get a handle on the growing number of PFAS in the waste stream.

Vann R. Newkirk II wrote for The Atlantic about worsening heat that comes with climate change, and how that affects workers from Central and South America to Qatar to the American South.

The News & Observer, The State, Columbia Journalism School, and the Center for Public Integrity are reporting a seven-part series on the health toll that climate change is taking on people who live and work in the Carolinas. The first looks at a flesh-eating bacteria called vibrio, which is "sickening more people and being found more often in rivers, creeks and sounds along the Carolina coast. People who get toxic vibrio infections from swimming or handling fish, crabs and shrimp sometimes watch helplessly as toxins eat away at their flesh, turning small sores into gaping wounds."

News flying under the radar

Charleston County in South Carolina has one of the nation’s largest inventories of structures vulnerable to flooding, according to the Post and Courier. "But, in many cases, owners aren’t paying significantly more in flood insurance. So there’s no incentive to raise or fix these properties, unless a storm trashes them and they require significant repair."

E&E News reported on how a solar array at the local high school in Batesville, Arkansas, is having an unconventional impact: boosting teachers’ pay.

Mountain Valley Pipeline construction has been on and off for years — and now it's halted again, according to Roanoke Times, after a federal court issued a temporary administrative stay of stream-crossing permits.

Help us reach more people in the South. Become a member!

We're hiring a contributing editor

The Southerly team is expanding! As we publish more frequently, we’re looking for someone who can help us edit essential, thoughtful, and nuanced stories about ecology, justice, and culture in the American South. More here.

‘Dead in the water’: How TVA bottlenecked a community-driven solar project

Emails show the utility could be leveraging the solar array to keep an electric cooperative locked in a long-term power agreement. Read the story.

How Europe’s wood pellet appetite worsens environmental racism in the South

An expanding wood pellet market in the Southeast has fallen short of climate and job goals — instead bringing air pollution, noise and reduced biodiversity in majority Black communities. Read the story, published with Scalawag and EHN.

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