John Gilbert farms with a brother, a son, and their wives along South Fork, a tributary of the Iowa River. In addition to non-GMO row crops, they raise small grains, forages, cattle, and antibiotic free pigs they sell to Niman Ranch. John is a volunteer with the Southfork Watershed Alliance, and is active in Practical Farmers of Iowa and the Iowa Farmers Union. Their farm has been recognized for its work toward sustainability. 

I’m certain I’m not the only one voting like my life depends on it. Quite literally, here in Iowa it does.

Iowa’s degraded water and record high cancer rates are impossible to ignore, meaning we have reason to live in fear. Water quality and cancer are not specifically on the ballot, but the choices we make will determine if Iowa has any chance of beginning the long battle to cleaner water and a healthier future. 

No item on the ballot has a more direct impact on water quality and cancer than the constitutional amendment (Amendment 1) requiring a two-thirds super majority of the legislature to approve any income tax increases. If Iowans approve this amendment, we’re guaranteed nothing will change, except more of us will die needlessly.

A “NO” vote is a vote for better water quality, for keeping thousands of Iowans from suffering with cancer, and for having a future that doesn’t include a bottom-of-the-barrel economy.

Adam Shriver is the host of the Canary in a Cornfield Podcast and Substack. He’s been writing and organizing around the connection between agriculture and public health in Iowa for the past five years.

First of all: much appreciation to Laura for letting me cross post my podcast here! You can find the Substack version here.

In this episode of Canary in a Cornfield, I speak with John McCracken, a reporter at Sentient Media, about the outlet’s nonprofit model and its focus on industrial agriculture and corporate accountability.

John explains Sentient’s Inside Iowa project and walks viewers through a new interactive map that plots roughly 11,000 medium-to-large factory farms across all 99 Iowa counties, estimates about 126 million animals and 170 billion pounds of manure annually, and links facilities to Iowa DNR records, violations, and nearby waterways and flood zones.

Ric Zarwell, John A. Lundell, and Kevin W. Techau co-authored this column. Zarwell is a lifelong Allamakee County conservationist, birder, and former president of the Allamakee County Protectors, known for advocating for the land and water of the Driftless Area. 

Lundell is a former mayor of Coralville (2013 – 2021) and ten-year City Council member. He is a member of the Iowa League of Cities Hall of Fameand a recognized water quality advocate.

Techau is a longtime Iowa conservation advocate who served as executive director and board chair of Keep Iowa Beautiful, served on the Iowa Environmental Council board,and enforced the Clean Water Act as U.S. Attorney for Iowa’s Northern District.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is failing her most fundamental job: protecting the health, safety, and lives of the people who elected her. Instead of acting as a vigorous steward of our environment, Bird has abandoned the state’s top environmental enforcement duties, shielding corporate polluters while everyday Iowans pay the price.

This is not a matter of routine political theater; it is a profound case of malfeasance.

Phil Montag is a Des Moines area activist and serves on the board of the Iowa Unity Coalition.

Listening to Zach Lahn on the Iowa gubernatorial campaign trail for the past year has been quite a show. To his credit, from the beginning he has put ecology, sustainable agriculture, and water quality front and center in ways that I wish politicians would do more often. 

After watching Randy Feenstra and Adam Steen trying to out-Trump each other and race to the bottom of banal human depravity and white grievance, part of me was happy to see Lahn win the Republican primary. 

Zach Lahn celebrates with supporters on primary election night (photo first published on his campaign’s Facebook page)

Hannah Grip is the Iowa Environmental Council’s Energy Communications Associate.

Iowans who are concerned about the state’s interconnected water quality and public health crises have the opportunity to learn more and engage in solutions at the 2026 Iowa Environmental Council Annual Conference.  

The event takes place from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 29, at the Olmsted Center at Drake University in Des Moines. General admission tickets are just $60, and students can attend for free (pre-registration is required.) Click here to see the full line-up and to register. 

The conference includes two keynote sessions that offer different lenses on water quality.

Jennifer Breon is a Senior Iowa Organizer with Food & Water Action, the political and lobbying sibling organization of the national environmental group Food & Water Watch. She is based in Iowa City.

Matt Hildreth is the Executive Director of Rural Organizing, a national organization working to rebuild a rural America that’s empowered, thriving, and equitable. Originally from eastern South Dakota, Matt is based in rural Washington State.

Industrial agriculture’s public health crisis is on full display in Iowa. 

As residents of the state with the nation’s fastest-rising cancer rates, the most factory farms and highest waterway toxic nitrate concentrations, Iowans are desperate for change. If Iowa Democrats want to regain power this fall, they need to prove to voters that they are serious about solutions.

If they can get it right, new polling from Rural Organizing outlines the opportunity this issue offers Democratic candidates: Iowans are so fed up with high and rising cancer rates that fully 11 percent of Trump’s rural Iowa voters would consider voting for a different party over this issue. Indeed, recent Food & Water Action polling found that few issues are as concerning to Iowa voters as cancer rates and clean water.

Politics is so often a game played in the margins, with opportunities for flipping voters between parties few and far between. Democrats would be wise to seize this rare opening.

A new poll conducted for Chris Jones’ campaign shows the Democratic challenger is “within striking distance” of Republican Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig and leads the incumbent after respondents read information about both candidates.

Change Research conducted the poll on behalf of Jones’ campaign from July 28 to August 1 and published key findings in a memo provided to Bleeding Heartland.

Naig led Jones by 42 percent to 40 percent in the first ballot test, before respondents heard biographies of either candidate. That’s within the margin of error (+/- 3.1 percentage points) for the survey of 1,071 likely general election voters. Some 16 percent said they were unsure.

After respondents read background information about both contenders, Jones led Naig by 46 percent to 40 percent, with 13 percent unsure.

Jones told me the poll backs up what he’s seen on the campaign trail: “Iowans are fed up with the status quo and ready for change.”

Naig’s campaign has not released any internal polling. But several signs point to Republican anxiety about the secretary of agriculture race.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column. This essay first appeared on Substack.

One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don’t get you then the left one will
—from “Sixteen Tons” as sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford

——————————

That’s the challenge the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness faces today along the Minnesota-Ontario border. The pristine area, the largest U.S. designated wilderness region east of the Rocky Mountains and north of the Everglades, with two million acres of forest and lakes, is threatened on two fronts, one of them unavoidable and the other entirely manmade.

The unavoidable danger is the forest fires that are currently ravaging western Ontario and northern Minnesota, including wilderness within the Boundary Waters. More than 73,000 acres in the area have burned so far, and as of this past weekend, some of the blazes are still uncontrolled. Other fires continue to devastate many more forest acres in Ontario to the north and west of the Boundary Waters.

Lightning has sparked most of the fires, as hot, dry weather continues across the area. It’s nobody’s fault. We can’t yet control lightning.

But President Donald Trump doesn’t see it that way. He blames the nation of Canada for the thick, choking smoke that blanketed much of America’s Midwest and East.

Nick Covington is an Iowa parent who taught high school social studies for ten years.

Iowans today find their rights limited by private, partisan, and parochial interests, where the in-group gets the freedom to flourish and the out-group is free to leave.

State logo and slogan adopted by the Reynolds administration in 2023

Iowa Republican candidates and elected officials have been quick to claim the mantle of “culture” and “heritage” in our state. Back in February, then Iowa Republican gubernatorial candidate, Zach Lahn told Tucker Carlson, “the primary catalyst for me doing this was I believe we are losing our culture and our heritage as a people. That’s my honest belief…Are the traditions and the heritage and the value[s] of our ancestors important to us?”

Keith Schneider, a former New York Times national correspondent, is senior editor for Circle of Blue, where this column was first published. He has reported on the contest for energy, food, and water in the era of climate change from six continents. 

Expect the unexpected.

That’s the only certainty of planting season across the Corn Belt. Heat. Frost. Insects. Too much rain, or none at all. Now add the distress the Trump administration has cursed farmers with: Broken markets. Tariffs. Rising fuel costs.

Never, though, has the unexpected included this spring’s surprise: serious consideration of the harm from industrial crop and animal production. Farming’s mammoth water pollution and its consequences for public health are on the ballot in Iowa, where the primary election occurs today.

Candidates of both parties for governor and secretary of agriculture have included among their campaign priorities Iowa’s rising cancer incidence and the nitrate water contamination that may well be responsible. For the first time, the health and environmental damage from farming has moved from the margins to the center of political priorities in Iowa, an agriculture colossus that is the nation’s largest grain and pork producer.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column. This essay first appeared on Substack.

My wife Kathy and I were privileged to be on hand for a grandson’s high school commencement ceremony at Adel-De Soto-Minburn (ADM) High School in Adel last Sunday. The event was hugely attended, impressive, and full of joy for the graduates, their classmates, families, and friends.

The end of a high school career is always a whirlwind for high school seniors. In a few years they probably won’t remember much about the ceremony, embedded as it was in the excitement of the season and the congratulatory family reception that often follows it.

The only thing I remember about my high school commencement back in 1959 is a quote from our ceremony’s guest speaker. He said, “If you don’t remember anything else I say here today, remember this:”.

That’s it. I forget what he said I was supposed to remember.

Josh Mandelbaum represents Ward 3 on the Des Moines City Council.

Iowa has the 2^nd highest cancer rate of any state in the country, and our cancer rates are increasing. Iowa’s cancer rates have been going up while the United States on the whole is experiencing declining cancer rates. This makes Iowa an outlier.

The question is what makes Iowa an outlier, and what can we do about it?

The Iowa Environmental Council (IEC) and the Harkin Institute attempt to answer that question with their new report “Environmental Risk Factors and Iowa’s Cancer Crisis.” The report looked at peer-reviewed research and found that environmental exposures to nitrate, pesticides, radon and PFAs are all associated with increased cancer risks. The executive summary noted that:

Adam Shriver is Director of Wellness and Nutrition at the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement. This essay was first published on his Substack newsletter, Canary in a Cornfield.

Iowa has a serious problem with nitrates in our drinking water that we’ve known about for decades, and these problems are only getting worse. Numerous studies—extremely high-quality studies—and detailed accounts of underlying biology all present a strong case that nitrates levels in drinking water lower than the current 10 mg/L NO3-N standard are linked to different types of cancer. We discussed that research in my interview with the Chair of a Denmark Ministry of the Environment Report, and the recent Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors in Iowa report covered those studies in detail.

For that reason, it’s extremely important for Iowans to have the best possible data measuring the amount of nitrate in our drinking water throughout the year.

Despite the urgency of the problem, the Iowa legislature cut off funding to the the University of Iowa’s IIHR Hydroscience and Engineering Water Quality Information System in 2024. The Walton Family Foundation agreed to step in and fund the network for two years, but they were very clear that this was only a temporary measure. In short, they were giving Iowa a couple years to get ourselves together.

What that means now: if the legislature does not restore funding in the state budget for fiscal year 2027, many of the sensors in the IIHR network may need to be removed or discontinued, putting Iowans at risk.

Wayne Ford is the executive director of Wayne Ford Equity Impact Institute and co-Director of the Brown and Black Forums of America. He is a former member of the Iowa legislature (1997 through 2010) and the founder and former executive director of Urban Dreams.

There are moments when an issue that has existed for years suddenly becomes visible to everyone at once.

Not because it is new—but because it can no longer be ignored.

Conversations begin to happen in public, decisions begin to affect daily life, and attention turns quickly toward what appears to be the immediate cause.

But what we are seeing is often not where the problem begins.

Brooklyn Draisey is a Report for America corps member working for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

Researchers and public health experts are urging lawmakers to turn knowledge of Iowa’s cancer crisis into action, with a new report detailing Iowans’ risks of exposure to different carcinogens and offering first and future steps to mitigating dangers.

On March 25, the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement and the Iowa Environmental Council released a report examining the environmental factors impacting Iowa’s high — and rising — cancer rates, including pesticides, per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), nitrate and radon.

Presenters said during a news conference the report goes beyond the topics seeing the greater focus, like personal behaviors and decisions leading to greater cancer risks, and filling the gaps in knowledge that have stopped forward momentum before now.

Sami Scheetz is a Linn County supervisor.

Across Linn County, I keep hearing the same question: What’s in it for us?

As massive data center projects are proposed across Iowa, residents are rightly asking why communities should shoulder resource-intensive development while trillion-dollar corporations generate enormous profits. It’s a fair question — and one the Linn County Board of Supervisors has taken seriously.

Last month, the board voted unanimously to finalize our data center ordinance after three readings, multiple public hearings, and weeks of community input. More than 100 residents attended our first reading in Palo, and their feedback directly shaped the final product. This is likely the most comprehensive data center ordinance a local government has adopted in Iowa.

Robin Opsahl, Brooklyn Draisey, and Cami Koons collaborated on this article, which was first published by Iowa Capital Dispatch.

Following the second “funnel” deadline of the Iowa legislative session, lawmakers often aim to shift their focus from policy to budgeting. But as lawmakers hit week 10 of the 2026 session, it appears agreements have not been reached on some of the top priorities laid out by Republicans at the beginning of session — primarily, eminent domain and property taxes.

Friday marked the second major deadline of the session, when most bills must be passed by one chamber and approved by a committee in the other chamber to stay eligible for consideration. There are many caveats to this rule — legislation involving spending, taxes or government oversight are not subject to the funnel.

Chamber leadership can also designate bills that have not made it through the committee process required as “unfinished business,” saving the measure from the funnel cutoff – and can also bring back “dead” legislation as leadership-sponsored legislation. Some “dead” bills may be added as amendments to surviving bills in future debate.

Wally Taylor is the Legal Chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources recently issued its 2026 draft of impaired waters. This is a requirement of section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act. Every two years states must list the water segments that do not meet water quality standards. This year the DNR evaluated 1,100 water segments and has listed 723 of those segments as impaired. That means that two-thirds of the water segments evaluated do not meet water quality standards.

The impaired waters list containing those 723 water segments are supposed to have total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) prepared. A TMDL calculates how much pollution can be discharged into the water and still meet water quality standards. The TMDL also includes a Water Quality Improvement Plan that proposes the path to bringing the water into compliance with water quality standards.

The problem with the Iowa list is that there are numerous water segments that have been on the list since 2006 and 2008, with no TMDL having been prepared. Some of those waters on the list since 2006 and 2008 are designated as Outstanding Iowa Waters pursuant to Iowa’s antidegradation policy. These waters are entitled to extra protection.

Robin Opsahl, Brooklyn Draisey, and Cami Koons collaborated on this article, which was first published by Iowa Capital Dispatch. Clark Kauffman and Kathie Obradovich also contributed to this story

Iowa lawmakers took on hundreds of bills in the first six weeks of the 2026 legislative session, though several measures named as top priorities heading into the year, like eminent domain and property taxes, have yet to find consensus.

February 19 was the last day lawmakers met to consider legislation before the first “funnel” deadline of the year. While there are many exceptions, most bills that don’t involve spending, taxes or government oversight must pass through a committee in either the House or Senate in order to stay eligible for consideration.

Wally Taylor is the Legal Chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter.

A recent study issued by Decision Innovation Solutions, a pro-Big Ag consulting firm in Des Moines, claims that Iowa’s farm economy is in dire straits because Iowa farmers are growing too much corn. Too much corn, according to the report, is creating a “demand gap.” In other words, corn growers are harvesting more corn that can be sold.

The report’s solution to this situation is year-round sale of E-15 (gasoline with 15 percent ethanol content), corn-based marine fuel, and corn-based aviation fuel. It should come as no surprise that the Iowa Corn Growers Association and the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association commissioned this study.

Cami Koons covers agriculture and the environment for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

A bill that advanced in an Iowa House subcommittee and committee on February 10 would prohibit a water segment from being designated as impaired unless the Iowa Department of Natural Resources identified the percentage of fecal bacteria coming from each animal species that contributed to its impairment.

Every two years, the DNR must submit a list to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of water segments in the state that are “impaired” or don’t meet water quality standards. 

Once listed, DNR and the EPA work to develop an improvement plan that puts limitations on the amount of pollutants that identified polluters can discharge into the surface water segments. 

Wally Taylor is the Legal Chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has drafted the 2025 update of Iowa’s Wildlife Action Plan. The plan shapes how we protect wildlife, restore habitat, and ensure healthy ecosystems for the next decade in Iowa. This post explains why that’s important, and how to encourage the state to follow its plan.

What’s a Wildlife Action Plan?

In order to receive federal funding for wildlife programs, each state is required to prepare a wildlife action plan, outlining the steps needed to conserve wildlife and habitat before they become too rare and costly to restore.

Adam Shriver is Director of Wellness and Nutrition at the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement. This essay was first published on his Substack newsletter, Canary in a Cornfield.

Republican State Senator Ken Rozenboom spoke at the Iowa Senate Agriculture Committee’s first meeting of the year on January 13. I appreciate that he raised the topic of nitrates in drinking water. He also made some comments that deserve a response.

I clipped a video from Rozenboom’s opening remarks, which I’ll focus on here:

Steve Dunn is a retired journalist who has self-published two books, about former State Senator Pat Deluhery’s political career and the history of professional baseball in Des Moines. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Blasts and Bunts.

To say we’re living in troubled times is an understatement. Since 2026 began, the U.S. has captured the leader of Venezuela and his wife, bombed Syria and threatened to take over Greenland by force if necessary. Not only that, but we’ve also witnessed the shooting of a Minnesota woman by an ICE agent.

After a church service on January 11, I told the associate pastor the toxic climate in the U.S. today is ten times worse than mood of the country in the 1960s, when I came of age. Oh sure, the 1960s included the highly unpopular Vietnam War, race riots, civil rights protests, and assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

But today an “us versus them” mentality has a stranglehold on America. It’s almost as if we’re two different countries with two different mindsets. We haven’t had this much division since the Civil War and the fight over preserving the union and abolishing slavery. Unfortunately, the divide is fueled by many talking heads on talk radio, social media, and television.

Deaconess Irene DeMaris grew up in rural Washington state, where she often got in trouble for driving too fast down gravel roads in the family pickup. She moved to Iowa in 2018 after meeting her now husband. Irene lives in Des Moines, where she is active in her faith community, enjoys riding her bike, and is converting her lawn into a pollinator paradise.

I don’t always get excited about candidates running for office. But when I heard Wade Dooley was running for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture as a Democrat, I was so genuinely thrilled that I startled my two Corgis.

Since moving to Iowa in late 2018, I’ve traveled across the state, listening to rural communities and learning how farming deeply shapes both our economy, and even more so, our identity. One thing has become abundantly clear: when farmers are empowered to lead, big things happen. Farmers are natural problem-solvers, called to work the land, adapt to challenges, and innovate. They already are, and must continue to be, leaders in climate solutions.

Wade Dooley is exactly that kind of leader.

Editor’s note from Laura Belin: This post has been updated with additional information and clarifications.

Linda Schreiber writes commentary on selected legislative issues.

For more than four decades, Iowa’s Bottle Bill stood as a national model: simple, effective, and popular. It reduced litter, boosted recycling, and put responsibility where it belonged—on producers and consumers. The 2022 update weakened those goals while reducing public accountability.

In 2019, Iowa State University professor Dr. Dermot Hayes recommended adjusting the five-cent deposit enacted in 1979 for inflation, roughly 17 cents at the time. A survey showed 88 percent of Iowans supported the Bottle Bill. Advocates, including the League of Women Voters and the Sierra Club, urged lawmakers to strengthen the program, improve redemption access, and preserve public benefits.

Iowa lawmakers chose a different path.

David Elbert is a former business editor and columnist for the Des Moines Register. He now writes about local history for DSM Magzine. A version of the following column appeared first in the Des Moines Register.

Wendy Wintersteen is retiring after eight years as the first female president of Iowa State University.

As a native of Ames and a graduate of Iowa State, I should be proud. But I’m not. In retrospect, I probably I expected too much from her.

Before Wintersteen took over the top job at ISU, she was dean of ISU’s highly regarded College of Agriculture. She was, I might add, the first Iowa State president with an agricultural background since 1926 when Raymond Pearson left to become president of the University of Maryland. 

Matt Russell is a farmer, political writer, and progressive ag and rural leader. He has published work in the New York Times, TIME, AgInsider, Civil Eats, and many state and local publications. He co-owns Coyote Run Farm with his husband Patrick Standley in rural Lacona, Iowa. A version of this essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Growing New Leaders: Perspectives from Coyote Run Farm.

Iowans will have some outstanding Democratic candidates to vote for in 2026. A Democratic candidate for secretary of agriculture is not yet among them, but could be soon.

Chris Jones has announced an exploratory committee and plans to decide whether to run in January. You can read Laura Belin’s interview with him here. Jones, who has a PhD in analytical chemistry, is a longtime advocate for cleaner water. He’s a sharp critic of how the agriculture industry has contributed to the pollution but avoided taking enough (if any) responsibility for dirty water.

Until election day 2024, I had planned to run for Iowa secretary of agriculture in 2026. My plan was to stay in my appointment at USDA with the Biden-Harris Administration until this fall. I’d hoped Christina Bohannan would win in Iowa’s first Congressional district, and as only one or two Democratic members of the Iowa delegation, I’d work with her to identify a great candidate to offer to the Harris-Walz Administration to be the next State Executive Director of the Iowa Farm Service Agency.

“I heard a physician say one time, you can tell a lot from a person by looking at their skin, and if their skin looks good, generally they’re in pretty good health,” Chris Jones told a capacity crowd at The Harkin Institute at Drake University on November 12. “And the way I see it, I look at Iowa, our lakes and our rivers and our aquifers in that same way.”

Those polluted waters “don’t look good” now, Jones said. “They’re sick,” and they indicate “we have a malignant tumor growing on the inside.”

The malignant tumor, in Jones’ view, is “corporate agriculture.” But consolidation in agriculture and the dominant model for farming have “had effects far beyond our water.” They have also “contributed greatly to the decline of rural Iowa.”

After sounding the alarm for years through his writing and public speaking, Jones is now exploring a Democratic campaign for Iowa secretary of agriculture in 2026. He spoke to Bleeding Heartland after the event in Des Moines about his vision for change and the policies he would champion if he runs for statewide office.

Steve Dunn is a retired journalist who has self-published two books, about former State Senator Pat Deluhery’s political career and the history of professional baseball in Des Moines.

Retired anesthesiologist Dr. Dick Wheeler of Des Moines put people to sleep for a living. Now he wants to wake people up to what he believes is the No. 1 threat to humanity: overpopulation. At 103 years old, Wheeler is more concerned about the future of his four children, eleven grandchildren, and fifteen great-grandchildren than his own.

He has been concerned about overpopulation for a couple of decades. “I read one article about it, which had a bunch of statistics that really alarmed me,” he explained. “Someone had asked a group of experts of various persuasions how many people could Earth support. After due consideration and research, they decided all the way from 11 billion to 17 billion.”

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register and the Substack newsletter Showing Up, where this essay first appeared. He served as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

Lines written by Samuel Coleridge 200 years ago, in 1825:

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing— […]
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.

It’s an early reference to “the birds and the bees,” (although Coleridge inverts the order), a familiar euphemism for a conversation parents should have with their children. But the poet also mentions work and hope, relevant to this ramble since major doses of both are needed for society to address a serious birds’ and bees’ situation—literally the birds and the bees—and their rapidly diminishing populations. 

Charles Bruner, Ralph Rosenberg, and David Osterberg jointly wrote this piece. All of the authors served with Paul Johnson in the Iowa legislature and remain active in Iowa politics and policy. They serve on the board of the Johnson Center for Land Stewardship Policy, which worked with Curt Meine in the development of We Can Do Better.

A land comprised of wilderness islands at one extreme and urban islands at the other, with vast food and fiber factories in between, does not constitute a geography of hope. But private land need not be devoted to a single-purpose enterprise. With a broader understanding of land and our place within the landscape, our Nation’s farms, ranches, and private forest land can and do serve the multiple functions that we and all other life do depend upon.

That quote is from Paul Johnson’s introduction to the USDA National Resources Soil Conservation Services’ 1996 America’s Private Land: A Geography of Hope, which is even more relevant today than when he wrote it and shepherded that publication. 

Paul Johnson (1941-2021) was a pivotal figure in American conservation, dedicating his life to bridging the gap between agriculture and environmental stewardship. A new book of Paul’s writings has just been released.

Pam Mackey Taylor is the Director of the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Every three years, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) conducts a Triennial Review of its water quality standards. Part of the review is a determination of what changes need to be made to Iowa’s existing water quality standards.

The agenda for the Triennial Review was simple. The DNR intends to focus on the following topic areas related to water quality standards:

• Tribal reserved rights
• Antidegradation
• Human health criteria
• Chapter 61/Surface Water Classification document cleanup
• Use attainability analysis
• PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, sometimes called “forever chemicals”)
• Lake nutrients

After digging into these topics during the review meeting, what jumped out was the lack of investment the State of Iowa and the DNR have made in water quality and improved water quality standards over the last two decades. 

John Gilbert farms with a brother, a son, and their wives along South Fork, a tributary of the Iowa River. In addition to non-GMO row crops, they raise small grains, forages, cattle, and antibiotic free pigs they sell to Niman Ranch. John is a volunteer with the Southfork Watershed Alliance, and is active in Practical Farmers of Iowa and the Iowa Farmers Union. Their farm has been recognized for its work toward sustainability. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: John Gilbert wrote the following essay, which was first published by the Des Moines Register, before the two-year anniversary of the 2018 Farm Bill’s expiration (September 30). Four members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation (Senators Chuck Grasssley and Joni Ernst, and Representatives Randy Feenstra and Zach Nunn) serve on the Senate or House Agriculture Committees, which are responsible for writing the Farm Bill.

It’s also important to note that this week, the Trump administration is expected to announce bailout payments for soybean farmers—reportedly of about $100 an acre—to offset damages caused by this administration’s erratic tariffs, and trade disruptions. The need for such a payment underscores the weakness of a farm policy based on unrestricted production.

It’s officially time Iowa has one of those warnings, like what you see on cigarette packages: “Caution: Living in Iowa is Hazardous to Your Health!”

The problem isn’t just that Iowa’s water carries way too many farm field pollutants (we’re all tired of hearing about nitrates), although that’s part of it. It’s not just that Iowa has way too many people dealing with cancer; or just that jobs in agriculture, meat packing, construction and manufacturing can be dangerous; or just the dangers of health care deserts in many areas of Iowa. And it’s not just that climate change is making Iowa’s weather more dangerous. The problem is all of those things, and more. 

Julie Stauch is a Democratic candidate for governor.

My team and I hit the ground running in June, and visited all fifteen Community College districts of Iowa. From the start, I made it clear: this campaign would be different. The old way of running campaigns isn’t working anymore, and I believe Iowans deserve a new approach. 

Over the last three months, I’ve spent my time understanding what people across this state most want from their next governor. The core message I heard was that Iowans want leaders who will focus on the real problems they face. The people of Iowa are fed up with candidates not deeply engaging in conversation with them. 

That’s why I’ve held 27 in-depth interview sessions across these districts, ensuring that every voice is heard and every concern is taken seriously. In fact, during the very first interview session, a woman wrote on her worksheet, “I feel like I’ve been heard for the first time.”

Chris Jones is a fisherman who lives in Iowa City. He writes the Substack newsletter The Swine Republic, where this post first appeared. 

Secretary of Agriculture is one of seven executive offices Iowans see on their off-year voting ballot. The Iowa legislature created both the office and the Department of Agriculture (now IDALS) in 1923.

It may seem curious that we have a statewide election for the administrator of a department that employs less than 2 percent of the state government workforce and represents a private industry that is only Iowa’s third-biggest and one with a declining share of the state’s Gross Domestic Product. All sorts of economic sectors are bigger than agriculture; for example, health care now nearly doubles Ag’s GDP in Iowa.

But we have to remember that in 1923, almost 40 percent of Iowa’s population lived on farms. It’s well below 10 percent in the present day, when only 67,000 people in Iowa list farming as their primary source of income (2 percent of Iowa) and many farmers don’t even live on the farm. GMO has made crop farming so easy that some Iowa farmers also farm in Kansas and the Dakotas and probably other states as well.

A person could wonder why we all don’t vote for a Secretary of Teachers, or a Secretary of Bartenders or Hairdressers or Truck-drivers.

Diane Rosenberg is executive director of Jefferson County Farmers & Neighbors, where this commentary first appeared.

Recently, a friend asked how the Iowa state legislature or governor have impeded the work of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and other agencies in cleaning up air and water borne toxins that may be causing Iowa’s increasing cancer rate.

After eighteen years of working on confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) issues, a whole laundry list of impediments rolled off the tip of my tongue.

Numerous studies link high nitrate levels to a variety of cancers. And this major agricultural state has the second highest rate of cancer in the nation and is one of two states where the number of cases is rising.

Water quality is in the news this summer. High nitrate levels are affecting drinking water in Central Iowa, a new Polk County water quality report links 80 percent of nitrate pollution to agriculture, and too many beaches are unswimmable just when we need to cool off in this blistering heat.

Given all that, I thought this is a good time to spotlight some of the ways I see our state government failing us.

Cami Koons covers agriculture and the environment for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

More than 500 individuals gathered in Des Moines on August 4 to hear what comes next following the release of an in-depth water quality report commissioned by Polk County. 

Another 500 watched online, to hear years worth of research on water pollutants and key steps forward at the individual, watershed and state levels. 

One speaker said it was the first step in an effort to keep the report from just “sitting on a shelf.”

“They spent over 4,000 hours on research and compiling data,” former Polk County administrator John Norris said. “Their work now empowers us as citizens and voters to demand action be taken to make our waters safe.” 

Julie Stauch is a Democratic candidate for governor. She lives in West Des Moines. This column first appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

In June, after declaring my campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor, I started traveling the state to hold Interview sessions in fifteen Community College districts. The goal is to understand ground level concerns of Iowans through free-flowing conversations. I want to determine what problems most Iowans are concerned about. Iowa’s next governor will need to address those problems.

While most of the participants have been Democrats, there have also been Republicans and no-party voters in the mix. These have been substantive conversations where individual Iowans share what they see as the biggest challenges facing their area and the state and what a successful Iowa would look like. I also answer their questions about my point of view on a variety of issues.

My core reason for running for governor is to solve problems Iowans need solved.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column. This essay first appeared on Substack.

The state of Iowa in 2013 approved its “Nutrient Reduction Strategy” for reducing nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into the state’s streams and rivers, and eventually downstream into the Gulf of Mexico. The voluntary strategy was officially adopted in 2018, with a goal of reducing the pollutants’ runoff by 45 percent.

While some farmers have been diligent in their efforts to comply with the strategy, and they deserve Iowans’ gratitude, too few of them do enough to adequately reduce nitrogen and phosphorus runoff. There are several reasons for the lag, including cost, inertia, failure to learn and/or appreciate the best practices proposed by the strategy, and individual resistance to change.