A new book does not paint a pretty picture about agriculture’s damaging impact on water quality in Iowa. But the author says it’s a must-have conversation.
“I became increasingly frustrated that the public wasn’t hearing the truth about water quality and its relationship to Iowa agriculture,” said Chris Jones, author of The Swine Republic: Struggles with the Truth about Agriculture and Water Quality.
“There’s all this trepidation about offending agriculture in Iowa. But I felt like if we were really going to solve these problems that we have – which are colossal – that we first needed to start speaking honestly.”
Iowa-based Ice Cube Press published the collection of essays by Jones, who is a water quality researcher. He spent the past eight years at the University of Iowa before retiring in May 2023.
“Our water is not good. It is not improving. I want people here in Iowa to have an expectation that as citizens, we have a right to clean water. I hope that they feel that after reading the book,” Jones said.
Jones said the biggest problem facing Iowa’s lakes, rivers, and streams is nitrogen pollution, which comes from corn and soybean production. He said runoff from farms that raise livestock also impairs water quality.
He said solving the problems would be quite costly. He doubts taxpayers would be willing to foot the bill – nor should they be expected to -- and he called it “a fantasy” to think that farmers will step up to the plate.
“In Iowa, just nitrogen alone is probably a $3 billion a year problem. So that’s a big question: Where’s that going to come from?” Jones said. “My perspective is that we need modifications in the production system, or we need laws that require farmers to do one thing or another.
“We cannot give farmers license to do whatever they want on their land, and then expect the taxpayer to mitigate the pollution. That’s just not good policy.”
Jones said recent research from the University of Wisconsin found that ethanol increases greenhouse gas emissions when compared to gasoline.
He said that raises questions about why we continue growing corn to produce ethanol. He said the nation’s renewable fuel standard should be phased out.
He said about 20% of the land area in Iowa is used to grow corn for ethanol.
“That is just a huge amount of land. What else could we do with that land? We need to start thinking about that,” Jones said.
He said one idea is to return some of the land in Iowa to pasture. He said pasture cattle would create better environmental outcomes than corn production, and would generate income for agriculture in the state.
He also said the demand for ethanol and other liquid fuels in the U.S. is declining already as automakers start moving to create more electric vehicles.
As for his future plans, Jones would like to write a book about the Driftless Area of Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
And he also wants to “catch some fish.”
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