Expect the unexpected.
That’s the only certainty about planting timing across the Corn Belt. heat. frost. insect. It rains too much or it doesn’t rain at all. Add to this the pain of the “market collapse” that the Trump administration has cursed farmers with. Tariff. Rising fuel costs.
But this spring’s surprise has never been so unexpected as to seriously consider the harms caused by industrial crops and livestock production. Tomorrow’s primary election in Iowa will focus on the massive water pollution caused by agriculture and its impact on public health.
Candidates from both parties for governor and secretary of agriculture have made Iowa’s rising cancer rates and nitrate water pollution, the likely cause, among their campaign priorities. For the first time, the health and environmental damage caused by agriculture has moved from the fringes to the center of political priorities in Iowa, an agricultural powerhouse that is the nation’s largest grain and pork producer.
Candidate’s statement
In the gubernatorial race, state auditor and Democratic candidate Rob Sund proposed aggressive water quality and public health efforts to combat Iowa’s second-highest cancer rate in the nation. On April 30, Sandoz introduced new ideas to limit farm nutrient emissions, call for better fertilizer management, restore Iowa’s river monitoring capacity, protect wetlands and establish a task force to address cancer rates. No Iowa gubernatorial candidate has ever supported such anti-cancer, anti-pollution policies. “Guns don’t care who you vote for, they don’t care what your politics are, they don’t care where you live,” he tells the audience.
Dr. Chris Jones, a chemist, author, and former manager of the Iowa River Monitoring Network, is running as a Democrat for state agriculture secretary. He is even more vocal about criticizing the harm caused by modern agricultural practices and proposing solutions.
Jones is pushing to diversify the state’s crops away from corn and soybeans to help farm incomes and reduce dependence on pesticides and fertilizers. He’s even demanding something unthinkable in Iowa: ending the national ethanol production program. He says a break from traditional practices is needed because ethanol is an inefficient energy source, consumes up to 60 percent of all corn produced in Iowa, and contributes to 700 million pounds of nitrogen fertilizer leaving fields annually. That nitrogen mixes with oxygen to form toxic nitrates, which are suspected carcinogens, and flows directly into groundwater, lakes, and rivers. It is even the primary cause of the Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone.”
“We have 555 rivers, 127 lakes, seven reservoirs, and five wetlands, and 80 percent of the rivers we monitor have been impaired for at least 10 years, and 43 percent of the lakes we monitor have been impaired for at least 10 years,” Jones told the audience. “One-third of Iowa’s public water supplies are susceptible to nitrate contamination, with 7,000 private wells tested above safe drinking water levels.”
Republicans too
Cancer and water pollution have been campaign issues in Iowa, with candidates openly criticizing agriculture, an unprecedented move. In Iowa, the political third rail isn’t talking disparagingly about Social Security, it’s talking disparagingly about agriculture.
Farm-related pollution and its health effects have been debated for years, but never before in academia and national institutions. The conversation was as subtle as the sound of bees pollinating spring flowers. While there is constant talk within the branch, it is nowhere near as powerful or influential as the belligerent denial of cause and effect by farm group leaders and political allies in Iowa’s $40 billion agricultural sector.
That’s no longer the case. Even Republican gubernatorial candidates have embraced the message of anti-pollution and anti-cancer campaigns. Farmer and businessman Zach Rahn argues that Iowans have “long been deceived by big agricultural companies about the safety of their produce.” He also frames farm pollution in moral terms. “Getting clean water is a pro-life issue. Reducing cancer rates is a pro-life issue,” Rahn said.
Former state Republican Rep. Brad Sherman, who was campaigning for governor, said he was open to it. Requirements for fertilizers and manure management have become more stringent, and we see it as a “life issue.” He said, “It’s the government’s job to protect lives. So, yes, the government has to be involved.”
The Iowa Legislature silenced a University of Iowa blog for aggressive reporting on farm-related contamination. The author of this blog is Chris Jones, a top water quality researcher. Photo ©Keith Schneider/Circle of Blue
unmistakable evidence of serious consequences
Why has the health and environmental damage caused by agriculture moved from the margins to the center of Iowa’s political priorities? One immediate answer is that the threat is getting worse every year. Iowa is one of three states with rising cancer rates and has the worst water pollution in the nation. Virtually every mile of streams and rivers, and nearly every lake, is contaminated with toxic pesticides, bacteria, and nitrates runoff from crop fields and spread by large-scale livestock operations in Iowa.
Des Moines, the state’s largest city, restricted water use last year because the river that supplies it with drinking water became too contaminated with nitrates. A report released in March by the Iowa Environmental Council and Harkin Institute for Public Policy Research found that Iowa’s heavy use of pesticides and widespread nitrate pollution are environmental factors associated with the state’s increased cancer rates. Another study released last year by Polk County, the state’s most populous county, found that agriculture accounts for nearly all of the nitrates polluting central Iowa’s waters.
“There is a huge threat to public health,” John Norris, Polk County administrator who helped launch the study, told the New Rede. “It also affects business and the economy. This report tells us exactly where the problem is coming from. It’s now up to us to have the courage to tackle it.”
Stories of cancer and environmental pollution are now being aggressively covered by news outlets in Iowa and beyond. The agricultural industry’s tendency to hide evidence and force prominent critics out of their jobs has heightened public concern.
For example, the Legislature has been trying for three years to eliminate the statewide river water quality monitoring network that reports nitrate pollution levels.
Polk County Commissioner Norris was ousted from his position in March 2025, months before the contamination study was made public. Similarly, Chris Jones was forced out of his post at the University of Iowa in 2023 by a conservative state senator close to agriculture. Lawmakers wanted to shut down Jones’ scathing assessments of agricultural irresponsibility, which he regularly posted on his University of Iowa-sponsored blog.
evidence of harm
It is important to note that carcinogenicity is due to a variety of environmental factors, and a single factor is rarely considered to be the cause, with the exception of a few confirmed causes, such as family history, radiation, smoking, sun exposure, and certain toxic chemicals.
However, nitrates are gradually emerging as a prime suspect in Corn Belt cancer. Nitrates are suspected by the World Health Organization to cause cancer, and epidemiological studies by the National Cancer Institute support that premise. Additionally, state and federal ground, surface, and drinking water monitoring across the Corn Belt shows nitrate levels are abnormally high and not decreasing in much of the region.
In summary, millions of Americans are drinking water contaminated with potentially dangerous levels of nitrates. The latest assessment of the scandal was completed by the Environmental Working Group, which has been tracking water quality for years. According to the study, 62 million Americans drink water with high nitrate concentrations. The worst pollution is in the agricultural provinces in the center of the country.
Four of the 14 states with the highest cancer rates in the nation are in the Corn Belt, according to the latest federal statistics. In Nebraska, another large agricultural state, counties with high levels of nitrate water pollution have the highest rates of juvenile cancer west of the Mississippi River.
The veil of silence that kept contaminated water and rising cancer rates off the political agenda has been broken. This debate could well spread to other polluted agricultural states after tomorrow’s primaries. At least for now, Iowa voters want answers and are getting answers.
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