FIRST PLACE — Rachel Wagoner, Farm and Dairy

Balancing love, loss and life after a farmer’s suicide 9/20/2022

Judge’s comments: Suicide is more than the loss of one farmer. It rocks his family and leaves them facing not only questions that he can never answer, but the enormous challenge of how to carry on. The writer combines aching human experience with solid information on mental health to breach the wall of silence that too often surrounds this timely topic. Rachel Wagoner has created an extraordinary canvas on which to explore the deep aftershocks of one man's death as well as the broader mental health crisis so many others face and fear. She brings the man and the woman who survives him to vivid, relatable life, while adding solid advice on recognizing the risks and finding help.

SECOND PLACE — Georgina Gustin, Inside Climate News

Climate Change is Driving Millions to the Precipice of a ‘Raging Food Catastrophe’ — 12/11/2022

THIRD PLACE — Ximena Bustillo and Steven Overly, Politico

This cheeseburger explains your bigger grocery bill — 4/13/2022

Judge’s comments: Using a cheeseburger to make the point about multiple facets of agriculture is more than a clever graphic (which it most certainly is). It provides an organizing framework to explore current policies and challenges facing grain, livestock, dairy, egg and produce growers, answering consumers' questions about why food prices are so high while offering cogent answers to what may be next. It's a relatable and understandable primer on ag in the 2020s.