Iowa continues to dominate the US hog farming market — slaughtering more than 39 million hogs last year, roughly 30% of the nationwide market, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) annual livestock slaughter report released this week.
People living near concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, in California, Texas and Iowa suffer from higher rates of cancer, suggesting that the air and water pollution from the massive farms may be playing a role, according to a new study.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is failing to put warnings on pesticides linked to cancer — even when the agency itself determined a product’s ingredients are carcinogenic, according to two new analyses of federal data.
Iowans are suffering from higher rates of more than a dozen types of cancers linked to pesticides and pollutants than the rest of the country, with researchers saying the risk of pesticide exposure alone may rival that of smoking, according to a new report.
A new analysis links high use of the weed killer glyphosate to elevated rates of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), particularly in the Upper Midwest, reinforcing years of research linking cancer to the weed killer made popular by Monsanto.
Three years ago Chris Jones was a highly regarded research engineer at the University of Iowa, where he directed stream pollution monitoring work and published details about the state’s dismal water quality in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Jones also authored a university-sponsored blog, where he regularly identified agriculture as the primary source of the state’s calamitous water pollution.
Environmental groups are pressing Iowa regulators for stricter water protections by getting up-to-date with federal recommendations and lowering nitrate limits, alleging that current safeguards are outdated, weak and leave Iowans exposed to toxics tied to rising cancer rates.
While all eyes have been on Iowa this summer, where levels of harmful nitrate contamination of water supplies spiked well above federal safety standards, nitrate pollution has also been persistently plaguing water sources in other farm states as well.
When a team of scientists embarked two years ago on a $1 million landmark study of Iowa’s persistent water quality problems, they knew that the findings would be important to share. But now, after the completed study pointed to agricultural pollution as a significant source of the key US farm state’s water quality problems, public officials have quietly stripped funding away from plans to promote the study findings.
Hundreds of Iowans gathered at Drake University in early August to confront a growing water quality crisis linked to the state’s powerful agricultural industry. Community leaders, scientists and farmers warned of dangerously high levels of nitrates, pesticides and livestock waste contaminating the state’s drinking water.