Funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide Connected Coastlines reporting initiative, student journalists from the University of Florida and the University of Missouri spent 16 weeks reporting the story of fertilizer from the discovery of nitrogen and phosphorous to their manufacture in supersized chemical plants along the Mississippi River to the promise of future solutions to help us rethink food production and chemical waste.
To get in touch, please reach out to:Cynthia Barnett, Environmental Journalist in Residence at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, clbarnett@jou.ufl.edu, or Sara Shipley Hiles, Associate Professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, HilesS@missouri.edu.
Journalists
from the University of Florida
Julia Cooper
Katie Delk
Fernando Figueroa
Alan Halaly
Abigail Hasebroock
Lucille Lannigan
Ana Clara Mattiuzzi Martins
Serra Sowers
Elliot Tritto
Lauren Whiddon
Julia Cooper
Julia Cooper is a May 2023 graduate of the UF College of Journalism and Communications with a minor in Women’s Studies. She has previously served as a photojournalist for The Independent Florida Alligator and the Gainesville Sun, and reported for the statewide Fresh Take Florida news desk. Most recently she served as an audio producer and multimedia journalist for WUFT News, North Central Florida’s NPR-affiliate station. Her coverage spans the environment, campus activism, public safety, health and education.
Katie Delk
Katie Delk is a May 2023 graduate of the UF College of Journalism and Communications with a minor in anthropology and expertise in agriculture and botany. As a 2022-23 Climate Institute Fellow, she reported on how farm families across Florida are responding to the devastating losses caused by climate change – and how they are adapting. Her stories on climate solutions, state legislation, public safety and culture also live on WUFT News, The Gainesville Sun, Atrium Magazine and The Independent Florida Alligator. She recently began a position as TCPalm’s environmental reporter on the east coast of Florida.
Fernando Figueroa
Fernando Figueroa is a UF journalism senior pursuing a minor in sustainability studies. He has previously been the environmental beat reporter for The Independent Florida Alligator, Gainesville’s student run-newspaper, and has also reported for WUFT News, UF’s NPR affiliate. Fern’s work focuses on environmental topics including climate activism; extreme weather; law and policy; and solutions to the climate crisis.
Alan Halaly
Alan Halaly is a UF journalism senior. In the past, he covered the 2021 building collapse in Surfside, Florida, and local news for Miami New Times and breaking news for The Daily Beast. He also has hunted down Florida stories for WUFT News, UF’s NPR affiliate. During the 2022-23 school year, he also led The Independent Florida Alligator — one of the largest student newsrooms in the country — as both editor-in-chief and engagement managing editor. There, he coordinated a special edition about climate change and its impact on UF and the surrounding community. This summer, he will intern at the Miami Herald, covering climate change and criminal justice.
Abigail Hasebroock
Abigail Hasebroock is a May 2023 graduate of the UF College of Journalism and Communications. She has reported and written for newspapers and magazines including the Orlando Sentinel, The Gainesville Sun, WUFT News, the Fresh Take Florida statewide news desk, The Independent Florida Alligator and Atrium Magazine. Her work has appeared in The Miami Herald, The South Florida Sun Sentinel, WUSF, WLRN and others. She recently started a full-time reporting position at the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Lucille Lannigan
Lucille Lannigan is a May 2023 graduate of the UF College of Journalism and Communications Her work has been published by 10 Tampa Bay CBS, The Independent Florida Alligator, WUFT News, Fresh Take Florida, The Miami Herald, The Tampa Bay Times and Atrium Magazine. Lannigan has covered race and equity issues in Gainesville; health and the environment; and the Florida Legislature. In July she will begin working at the Albany Herald as a Report for America corps member, covering rural communities in southwest Georgia.
Ana Clara Mattiuzzi Martins
Ana Clara Mattiuzzi Martins is a UF senior majoring in natural resource conservation. She has worked alongside scientists to study the relationships that connect the natural world, both in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Her research topics included how birds react to different tufted titmouse calls and how hippos affect the water quality in East Africa’s Mara River. Ana has a specialization in reporting on the environment and wrote about the psychology of hurricane risk for the WUFT public media project Living on the Edge. This summer she will continue to work on the Mara River hippo project as a web developer and science communicator.
Serra Sowers
Serra Sowers is a UF honors journalism senior pursuing a dual degree in journalism and sustainability studies. She currently works as a producer, reporter and anchor for WUFT News TV/FM, a PBS and NPR affiliate station. Her work has been published with WUFT, The Independent Florida Alligator, WGCU, NASW and national NPR. Serra has covered Hurricane Ian, protests, state elections and the 60-year commemoration of key events in the Civil Rights movement during the 2022-2023 school year. This summer, she will intern with WESH 2 News in Orlando.
Elliot Tritto
Elliot Tritto is a May 2023 graduate of the UF College of Journalism and Communications. He’s reported for local NPR affiliate WUFT; ESPN Gainesville; The Independent Alligator, and the statewide news desk Fresh Take Florida. At WUFT, he’s hosted and produced for All Things Considered and its daily news podcast, The Point. At ESPN, he has produced on-air call in shows and live Gator sports games. He produced and edited a podcast for The Alligator. His Fresh Take Florida stories appeared in outlets including The Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, and The Tampa Bay Times. His work has focused on Florida politics, environment and education.
Lauren Whiddon
Lauren Whiddon is a UF journalism senior with a specialization in photojournalism and Spanish minor. She has previously served as an arts and culture reporter for The Independent Florida Alligator and a photojournalist for the statewide Fresh Take Florida news desk. Her photos have been featured in The Miami Herald, The Tampa Bay Times, and The Orlando Sentinel. This summer she will serve as The Independent Florida Alligator’s arts and culture editor.
from the University of Missouri
Bailey Becker
Maya Bell
Mavis Chan
Josie Heimsoth
Lauren Hines-Acosta
Jamie Holcomb
Joy Mazur
Noah Zahn
Sofi Zeman
Bailey Becker
Bailey Becker is a 2023 graduate from the MU School of Journalism with an emphasis in cross platform editing and producing and a minor in history. She has been a digital producer at Vox Magazine and worked as a copywriting intern at Concordia Publishing House. In 2022 she served as a communications intern at Ibero-American University Foundation in Barcelona. Currently she is the editor of the American Iris Region 18 bulletin. She starts a master’s in journalism at the University of Missouri this fall.
Maya Bell
Maya Bell is a documentary filmmaker and visual journalist from Columbia, Missouri. During her time at the MU, she majored in Documentary and Photojournalism, minored in Biological Sciences and played in the University Philharmonic. Maya is a Walter Williams Scholar and the recipient of the 2023 National Press Photographer Foundation TV and Multimedia award. She was a photographer, videographer and visual editor at the Columbia Missourian for over a year. After working on several farms, she developed a passion for agricultural and environmental storytelling.
Mavis Chan
Mavis Chan is a 2023 graduate from MU with majors in journalism and political science. Previously, she reported on state government and higher education for the Columbia Missourian. She has also worked as a reporter for the online paper ARLnow, based in Arlington, Va. She is now the health and social services reporter at the Jefferson City News Tribune in Missouri.
Josie Heimsoth
Josie Heimsoth is a senior at MU double-majoring in journalism and environmental science. She has experience writing for the Columbia Missourian, Vox Magazine, the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk and MU Bond Life Sciences Center. She has reported on the environment, climate, water, entomology, life sciences and agriculture. This summer, she will be interning at the communications department for the MU Center for Regenerative Agriculture.
Lauren Hines-Acosta
Lauren Hines-Acosta is a 2023 graduate from MU with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in astronomy. She has worked for the Columbia Missourian, KBIA, MU Bond Life Sciences Center and Johns Hopkins Medicine. She has covered higher education and many fields of science from biomedical research to physics to the environment.
Jamie Holcomb
Jamie Holcomb is an honors graduate of MU’s School of Journalism with a minor in French. They have previously reported with the Columbia Missourian covering local government, social justice issues, and state government. She has also reported on European policy for Brussels-based EURACTIV. Their work focuses on local, state and international politics with an emphasis on undercovered or marginalized populations. This fall, she will begin a master’s in European and International Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Joy Mazur
Joy Mazur is a 2023 graduate of MU with bachelor’s degrees in Journalism and Political Science and a minor in French. Her previous reporting covered state government, social justice and local community for the Columbia Missourian. She has also worked with POLITICO Europe to develop social media content. She will start an internship with the International League Against Epilepsy in May and will enter a master’s program in journalism at the University of Missouri this fall.
Noah Zahn
Noah Zahn is a student reporter for the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk and a 2023 graduate from MU with degrees in journalism and music. He has experience working for POLITICO Europe, The Nature Conservancy, The Joplin Globe, KBIA and Missouri Business Alert. Noah has reported on politics, environmental issues, business and music.
Sofi Zeman
Sofi Zeman is a reporter for the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk and a 2023 graduate from MU. She has worked as an education reporter and assistant city editor for the Columbia Missourian and has bylines in The 74 Million, the Missouri Independent, the Boone County Journal and a handful of rural Missouri publications. Next up, Sofi is moving to Uvalde, Texas, to cover education, safety and crime as a Report for America corps member.
Advisors
Cynthia Barnett
Sara Shipley Hiles
Joan Meiners
Dan Mika
Cynthia Barnett
Cynthia Barnett is an award-winning water and climate journalist and environmental journalist in residence at UF’s College of Journalism and Communications. Her work appears in National Geographic, The Atlantic, Politico, and many newspapers and other publications. She is the author of four books including Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, long-listed for the National Book Award, and her latest, The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans, named one of the best science books of the year by NPR’s Science Friday. She teaches environment and science reporting around hands-on projects such as the Pulitzer Center-funded investigation Watershed.
Sara Shipley Hiles
Sara Shipley Hiles is an associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the executive director of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, a collaborative reporting network covering agriculture, water, climate, and other environmental issues across the river basin. She is a board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and a former staff reporter at publications including The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky.
Joan Meiners
Joan Meiners is an adjunct lecturer at the UF College of Journalism and Communications and the Climate News and Storytelling Reporter at The Arizona Republic. She completed a Ph.D. in Ecology at UF before switching her focus to journalism in 2019. She worked on an award-winning project investigating oil and gas pollution in southeast Louisiana with The Times-Picayune | The Advocate and ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. She then freelanced about science and the environment for Discover Magazine, National Geographic, Orion Magazine and others, winning a feature story award for her 2020 deep dive into sustainable human burial for Discover Magazine. Most recently, she covered growth and water insecurity in southwestern Utah for The Spectrum News in St. George before joining The Arizona Republic, where she covers climate in America’s hottest big city.
Dan Mika
Dan Mika is a graduate student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism focusing on investigative and data journalism. He previously reported on business, agriculture, and finance for the Ames Tribune, Cedar Rapids Gazette, BizWest Media, and ETF.com.
Reporting groups from the University of Florida and the University of Missouri collaborated on this project with funding support from the Pulitzer Center.
Additional editing and other special thanks
Production and editing: Matt Sheehan, managing director, the Center for Public Interest Communications and senior lecturer of journalism at the University of Florida.
Additional editing: Ethan Magoc, Managing Editor, UF’s Innovation News Center and WUFT News, and Kristin Moorehead, multimedia content producer, WUFT News.
Data editors: Joan Meiners, adjunct lecturer at the UF College of Journalism and Communications and Climate News and Storytelling Reporter at The Arizona Republic, and Dan Mika, graduate student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism focusing on investigative and data journalism.
Photographer: Lauren Whiddon
Illustrations: Fernando Figueroa, Ana Clara Mattiuzzi Martins and Amayah Novela
Additional design: Julia Cooper
Podcasting: Julia Cooper and Elliot Tritto
With special thanks to professional journalist advisorsJulie Anderson, Max Chesnes, Chris Clayton, Mónica Cordero, Dan Egan, Bryce Gray, Georgina Gustin, Erin Jordan, Steven Newborn, Halle Parker and Mark Schleifstein; to Ted Spiker, Ryan Vasquez, Cally House and Ted Bridis at the UF College of Journalism and Communications for additional support; to fertilizer science advisor Dr. George J. Hochmuth, UF professor emeritus of soil and water science; to UF librarians Bridget Bihm-Manuel, April Hines, Savannah Peltrau, Suzanne Stapleton, Patricia Takacs and Florence Turcotte for research assistance; and to Steve Sapienza, who champions journalism at the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. The Price of Plenty is published on UF’s WUFT News and MU-affiliated The Columbia Missourian, with additional distribution through the Florida Climate Reporting Network and the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk.
The Price of Plenty
