Iowa chose to make water quality initiatives by farmers voluntary, thereby removing any serious intent or disciplinary framework. Agriculture has a huge corporate footprint in the state, from land ownership to control of seed and chemicals.
Health is highly linked to nutritional sources. Ours as a nation will continue to decline until we change those sources.
Yep, and if its doing this to us think of the impact on all of the other members of our community - fish, wildlife, plants, etc. Wonder how many of them die and get sick from this stuff?
For the connection to health impacts alone, ANCJ. Even if one disagrees with CJ (Chris Jones) on other assertions in this essay, American Needs more ag policy, health related decisions built upon science. It has not always been this dismal: Over 30 years ago, the Iowa Demo controlled Legislature, with Gov. Branstad’s signature, created the Center for HealthEffects of Environmental Contamination, as part of the same law that created the Leopold Center for Sustainable Ag at ISU and the Waste Reduction Center at UNI.
Ouch! Thanks for the hard truths, backed with facts, Chris. Twenty years ago we built in between corn fields, and dug our own 150' well. Since then our nitrate levels have risen from 11 ppm to 14, despite us doing nothing to contribute to it. We're putting in a reverse osmosis system next week, in order to try to protect our health. We're footing the whole bill because those who probably bear responsibility, won't. I nag my state representative and senator (so far to no avail) about this issue -- not so much for us who can afford mitigation, but for those who can't.
Keep on pushing, Chris. We need your voice to inspire us.
And then there is corn syrup in our pop which the body does not read as "filling." Therefore, we have this incredible rate of obesity in Iowa and elsewhere. I suggest that those huge pop containers and the high-fat meat (bacon/cheese/burgers) and pizza Iowans eat are another cause for poor health, C-Pap Machines and early death.
Excellent article! While I have always known the corporate boys weren’t in it just to be nice; these statistics are horrifying! As I sit here on our wooded property that is in the middle of the Georgia poultry agricultural center, my worry for my own well grows. I will be having further testing ASAP. Please keep making noise and spreading the word!
Very good info. I believe u have said Kentucky has highest cancer rate? What causes theirs? Also what are the next few states. Yes, Ia farmers can be worth a million or more, ON PAPER, if it's paid for that took maybe through their lifetime. Just 80 A. at $12,500/A, not top ground today, is worth a million. An 80 won't support a family or a farming op. There are reasons IA doesn't raise other crops, Tvegetables, (California) , wheat (too much humidity causing diseases), dairy alfalfa(rains wrong time), oats (canada) potatoes, sugar beats, etc. Over the years through trial and error it's been found corn and SB are best for here.
Can't make land payments with outside hogs on many of the cropping acres. If u can show how let me know. Don't need a degree in nutrition to know need for soybean meal in diets. We do use forages for ruminant animals, but then people find fault with some of them. Rotation?? To what? Must have reliable market and competitive market. Just the facts, just the facts. Like it or not.
Cheering the saving of some of the kids, not by environmental protection and dietary prevention, but by medical Hail Mary. Harkening back to temples and ball courts, elites wielding obsidian knives, and sacrifices keeping sun and earth aligned, for maximum maize.
Rich the groundwater quality expert in Iowa is David Cwiertny at the University of Iowa. He is director of the Center for Health Effects and Environmental Contaminants. Hope you are doing well.
I also believe the start of the ANF logo started in the1980's farm crisis. At a time of crashing agriculture , many farm bankruptcies, small and larger farm liquidation there was a player/s on U of I football team whose farm family's were going through bad financial problems. Coach Ferentz came up with the idea to show his support by the ANF logo. Now 50 yrs later Farm Bureau still supports it. Waht's wrong with that?
. . . a likely vertically integrated business model of ag production that's in contrast to a diversified owner-operstor model that features feed grains/ legumes, and likely free-range or quasi-free range animal/poultry production.
Sounds warming. As a farmer for 50 years primarily raising hogs and in the beginning raising them in the 'field' where big rains washed baby pigs away, heat made sows not milk and baby's starve. And need not even start on snow and COLD. But to many that don't know it was hell at times . Wow, I can still remember people raising poultry in the "field', coyotes and other predators lived very well with those meals. Many MANY birds died from rain or heat. Remember any livestock losses are not the banks share but the man with his butt on the line, trying to make a living!!! Also with diversification comes needs of different types of high priced machinery for that enterprise. In order to justify that it is a must to raise a lot of those units and have profitability, the labor and the management for different enterprises as well as the acres
Thanks for response. I can see ur thoughts on the integrated business model. Unfortunately the free range or quasi-free range is not very feasible across the country or wouldn't have gone to wayside because of financial considerations.
Organic small grains farmer here. Illinois. Most excellent and disturbing reading.
Cecilia--thank you for the comment and following the substack.
Thank you again for speaking the truth for Iowans- You're one of the best scientists we have in our State...WE ARE beyond GRATEFUL!!!
Thank you for all your kind words Christine.
Excellent piece!
Iowa chose to make water quality initiatives by farmers voluntary, thereby removing any serious intent or disciplinary framework. Agriculture has a huge corporate footprint in the state, from land ownership to control of seed and chemicals.
Health is highly linked to nutritional sources. Ours as a nation will continue to decline until we change those sources.
Thanks so much Mary for commenting and following the substack!
WOW... thank you for so wonderfully tying together all those subtle and often repressed loose ends, Chris!!! Mary McB
Yep, and if its doing this to us think of the impact on all of the other members of our community - fish, wildlife, plants, etc. Wonder how many of them die and get sick from this stuff?
we shouldn't need to human health effects before acting--yes what we do to other species should be reason enough.
For the connection to health impacts alone, ANCJ. Even if one disagrees with CJ (Chris Jones) on other assertions in this essay, American Needs more ag policy, health related decisions built upon science. It has not always been this dismal: Over 30 years ago, the Iowa Demo controlled Legislature, with Gov. Branstad’s signature, created the Center for HealthEffects of Environmental Contamination, as part of the same law that created the Leopold Center for Sustainable Ag at ISU and the Waste Reduction Center at UNI.
Ouch! Thanks for the hard truths, backed with facts, Chris. Twenty years ago we built in between corn fields, and dug our own 150' well. Since then our nitrate levels have risen from 11 ppm to 14, despite us doing nothing to contribute to it. We're putting in a reverse osmosis system next week, in order to try to protect our health. We're footing the whole bill because those who probably bear responsibility, won't. I nag my state representative and senator (so far to no avail) about this issue -- not so much for us who can afford mitigation, but for those who can't.
Keep on pushing, Chris. We need your voice to inspire us.
thanks Glenn for the encouraging words!
Thank you! So grateful to all who take on the sacred cow of industrial ag!
Thank you Hendrica for the comment and following the substack!
What is 'industrial Ag'?
What is industrial Ag?
Iowa Farm Bureau does little to support farmers....
truth
And then there is corn syrup in our pop which the body does not read as "filling." Therefore, we have this incredible rate of obesity in Iowa and elsewhere. I suggest that those huge pop containers and the high-fat meat (bacon/cheese/burgers) and pizza Iowans eat are another cause for poor health, C-Pap Machines and early death.
Who forces the people to drink soda pop and eat processed foods? You're saying these people can't think for themselves?
Excellent article! While I have always known the corporate boys weren’t in it just to be nice; these statistics are horrifying! As I sit here on our wooded property that is in the middle of the Georgia poultry agricultural center, my worry for my own well grows. I will be having further testing ASAP. Please keep making noise and spreading the word!
thanks Alice for the support!
Am embarrassed, as a UI grad, that UI is in bed with this ANF thing, promoted by Farm Bureau !
How 'bout a Blk Gold t-shirt that proclaims ANCW, w/Farmers Union tag line ?
It's tough to swallow to be sure.
Very good info. I believe u have said Kentucky has highest cancer rate? What causes theirs? Also what are the next few states. Yes, Ia farmers can be worth a million or more, ON PAPER, if it's paid for that took maybe through their lifetime. Just 80 A. at $12,500/A, not top ground today, is worth a million. An 80 won't support a family or a farming op. There are reasons IA doesn't raise other crops, Tvegetables, (California) , wheat (too much humidity causing diseases), dairy alfalfa(rains wrong time), oats (canada) potatoes, sugar beats, etc. Over the years through trial and error it's been found corn and SB are best for here.
Subsidies for fuel and export income tip the scale toward corn and soy.
Outdoor livestock, that's for chumps, ddgs and soymeal thats the ticket.
Forages, Rotation, Diversity, How quaint.
We are far too smrt for that! Oh, and we forgot how.
Can't make land payments with outside hogs on many of the cropping acres. If u can show how let me know. Don't need a degree in nutrition to know need for soybean meal in diets. We do use forages for ruminant animals, but then people find fault with some of them. Rotation?? To what? Must have reliable market and competitive market. Just the facts, just the facts. Like it or not.
yes KY is the highest
Cheering the saving of some of the kids, not by environmental protection and dietary prevention, but by medical Hail Mary. Harkening back to temples and ball courts, elites wielding obsidian knives, and sacrifices keeping sun and earth aligned, for maximum maize.
Chris, we recently learned that Iowa leads the nation in the incidence of cancer. Now we've found that both organic and inorganic fertilizers are loaded with microplastics: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2412529-fertilisers-are-a-major-source-of-microplastic-pollution-in-soil/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home
The NIH recently established that there may be a link between microplastics and a type of cancer not uncommon in Iowa: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10340669/
The groundwater thread through these is obvious. Are you aware of any entity exploring these connections in Iowa?
Rich the groundwater quality expert in Iowa is David Cwiertny at the University of Iowa. He is director of the Center for Health Effects and Environmental Contaminants. Hope you are doing well.
I also believe the start of the ANF logo started in the1980's farm crisis. At a time of crashing agriculture , many farm bankruptcies, small and larger farm liquidation there was a player/s on U of I football team whose farm family's were going through bad financial problems. Coach Ferentz came up with the idea to show his support by the ANF logo. Now 50 yrs later Farm Bureau still supports it. Waht's wrong with that?
I think it was Coach Hayden Fry, not Ferentz. Ferentz continued it.
correct, my bad
Does America need industrial farming - highly taxpayer-subsidized - no holds barred or clean water ?
ANF is simplistic and nonsense in 2023 . . . funded and touted by our public-owned university.
Pretty crazy. . . .
What is 'industrial farming'?
. . . a likely vertically integrated business model of ag production that's in contrast to a diversified owner-operstor model that features feed grains/ legumes, and likely free-range or quasi-free range animal/poultry production.
Sounds warming. As a farmer for 50 years primarily raising hogs and in the beginning raising them in the 'field' where big rains washed baby pigs away, heat made sows not milk and baby's starve. And need not even start on snow and COLD. But to many that don't know it was hell at times . Wow, I can still remember people raising poultry in the "field', coyotes and other predators lived very well with those meals. Many MANY birds died from rain or heat. Remember any livestock losses are not the banks share but the man with his butt on the line, trying to make a living!!! Also with diversification comes needs of different types of high priced machinery for that enterprise. In order to justify that it is a must to raise a lot of those units and have profitability, the labor and the management for different enterprises as well as the acres
Thanks for response. I can see ur thoughts on the integrated business model. Unfortunately the free range or quasi-free range is not very feasible across the country or wouldn't have gone to wayside because of financial considerations.