Juneau W. | Red Phoenix correspondent | Iowa–
Iowa is one of the most important centers for agriculture in the United States and, depending on who you ask, the world. However, it is also the state with the second highest cancer rate and has the fastest-growing rate in the country, racing to beat Kentucky for the overall highest cancer rate. It is estimated that over 20,000 Iowans will be diagnosed with cancer in 2025 and 6,000 patients will die by the end of the year.
The Iowa Cancer Registry attributes most of the blame to individual factors and poor decisions, citing cancer’s links to alcohol, smoking, and lack of proper diet and exercise, and the fact that the state ranks high in terms of alcohol and tobacco consumption. But the Registry seems to ignore, and almost avoid, another key factor related to Iowa’s agricultural industry: we see the classic offset of blame from corporations and large landowners to the individual. And while these factors certainly play a part, and individual actions are definitely influenced by alcohol and tobacco corporations with a lack of care for the population in the pursuit of profit, let us turn our attention back to Iowa’s agricultural industry.
30 million of Iowa’s 35 million acres are dedicated to agriculture, making an extreme majority of the state land for crops and farm animals. Corporate farmers have major influence on state policy as a result, meaning that regulation is minimal and so are punishments. Large farms here over-spray their fields with both natural and synthetic fertilizers which then turns into runoff in our creeks, rivers, ponds, lakes, and aquifers from which we get our water supply. In addition to this, they also illegally dump manure, fertilizer, and other byproducts into rivers with little consequence, contributing to an already dire crisis.
To put into perspective how severe this crisis is, Des Moines is home to the world’s largest nitrate removal facility. Nitrate, a byproduct of manure on fields, has links not only to cancer but also things like blue-baby syndrome. This summer, central Iowa has been under a lawn watering ban because the nitrate levels in the water are above the already too high 10 mg/L federal limit. The world’s largest nitrate removal facility, operating with other facilities in the area, has been struggling to sufficiently remove nitrate from the water. And although lawn watering isn’t important, and could even be considered a wasteful, harmful practice, if things continue to get worse with the climate, which directly contributed to this crisis by causing a drought the year prior which allowed the build up of these chemicals, and farming continues to be a for-profit endeavor that isn’t done with the strict oversight and approval of the community, drinking water will be at stake. Cancer rates will continue to climb and accelerate, we could see a rise in cases of stillborn babies, and the degradation of the environment will continue in the name of capital.
Attempts by most likely well-intentioned groups fall short in the state government when it comes to trying to regulate these large, disconnected farms and their impact on the community and the environment. The bourgeois media plays its part as well. Any time a movement or bill gets popular that threatens the right of the commodity farmer to destroy the land and waterways, it is framed as an attack on land rights and a slippery slope to big government overreach. If they can regulate what they do on their land, they will attack us next! It’s very strange to watch, reminiscent of Marx stating, “You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population.” But it works quite often.
The people of Iowa, and indeed in other parts of the country and even the world, continue to fight against these massive corporate farms for the basic right to a safe environment which does not bring about the risk of chronic illness, of cancer, of a stillborn child, or any number of other preventable tragedies. But these fights will never end under capitalism. Social murder, or any social ill, is a product and not a mistake of capitalist agriculture — as is the poor distribution of food and agricultural products, the well-being of those who work the fields, and that of those who live near them.
The end of the corporate farm, which is devoid of empathy and accountability for its community (local and abroad) and requires these practices to function, will be the beginning of the end of these ills. The cooperative and collective farms, in the interest and under the oversight of the people, will mitigate these issues maybe into being nonexistent.