Chris Jones discusses the impact of agribusiness on Iowa water quality
Chris Jones, author of “The Swine Republic,” talks about agribusiness and its effects on Iowa’s rivers, streams and other bodies of water.
- Chris Jones, a critic of Iowa’s farm pollution, is running for the state’s secretary of agriculture.
- Jones advocates for regulations to curb farm pollution and criticizes the state’s reliance on ethanol and large animal feeding operations.
- Jones suggests diversifying crops beyond corn and soybeans and returning to more traditional animal farming methods.
Chris Jones, a critic of Iowa’s efforts to curb farm pollution, says he’s running to be the state’s secretary of agriculture because he wants to revamp a system that enriches giant corporations while creating environmental problems and leaving farmers struggling financially.
The 65-year-old former University of Iowa researcher, announcing his bid Thursday, Jan. 15, said Iowa needs “common sense regulations” that will better prevent farm pollution. He slammed Iowa’s embrace of ethanol and CAFOs, confined animal feeding operations, that house thousands of pigs, chickens, turkeys and cows across Iowa.
“Clearly, the public is not getting the environmental outcomes they want from this production system,” Jones said during a news conference in front of Des Moines Water Works.
He noted that the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers, sources of drinking water for 600,000 central Iowa residents, were above the federal government’s nitrate limit for safe drinking water Thursday.
Des Moines Water Works, which noted that it doesn’t endorse political candidates, said it’s run its nitrate removal system since Jan. 6, the first time it’s had to do so in January since 2015. Last summer, Central Iowa Water Works, a group of utilities that includes Des Moines Water Works, banned customers from watering their lawns for nearly two months as it struggled to maintain enough treatment capacity to deal with record-high nitrate levels.
Jones also said farmers “are not getting the economic outcomes they want,” pointing to the $12 billion in assistance that the Trump administration announced this month to help offset their financial and trade losses.
“Who’s getting the favorable outcomes? It’s these multinational and ungovernable corporate agribusinesses” like Bayer AG, Koch Industries and Syngenta Corp. that supply seed, chemicals and other products to farmers, said Jones, a Democrat.
More: Iowa’s largest urban area faces a water crisis. How experts say we can solve it.
He criticized Mike Naig, the incumbent who is seeking his third term as agriculture secretary, saying the Republican is beholden to big ag companies. Naig, who grew up on a northwest Iowa farm, worked for Monsanto Corp., now part of Bayer, as a government affairs manager from 2008 to 2013, according to his LinkedIn page.
“I want to be the secretary of agriculture for all Iowans… not just for corporate agriculture,” Jones said.
Wade Dooley, a central Iowa farmer, also announced his bid for ag secretary this week. A Democrat, he said Des Moines leaders are too focused on “helping big businesses and political insiders who are doing just fine.”
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement Thursday that “while Democrats argue over which extreme leftist will lose” to Naig, the 47-year-old ― who easily defeated Democratic opponent John Norwood in 2022 ― is “focused on leading Iowa.”
“His record is clear: expanding markets for Iowa agriculture, accelerating conservation efforts, and delivering real results for Iowa families,” Kaufmann said. “That’s the steady leadership Iowans want, not Democrat policies that lead to higher taxes and heavier regulations that drive up gas and grocery prices.”
Here’s what to know about other issues Jones addressed.
‘I don’t think ethanol has a good future’
Calling ethanol a dead end, Jones said Iowa is too reliant on the renewable fuel, which annually consumes about half the state’s nation-leading corn crop.
“I don’t think ethanol has a good future. I think the state needs to retreat from ethanol as a feature of its production system,” given the nation’s shift to electric vehicles, he said.
Jones said Iowa needs farmland the size of “about 20 counties” to provide the corn needed to make ethanol each year.
“Instead of continuously trying to find what we can do with more and more and more corn, maybe let’s think about growing something else,” said Jones, who believes farmers should add small grains like oats and alfalfa to diversify Iowa’s predominant corn-and-soybean rotation.
The move would reduce the quantities of fertilizers and chemicals farmers need to use, build soil health and reduce weed and insect pressure, he said.
“We know we can grow oats here,” Jones said, adding that with cereal maker Quaker Oats “we have the world’s largest oat mill in Cedar Rapids. Why can’t we have some program that incentivizes oat production here?”
Carbon capture pipeline enriches ‘people who are already very wealthy’
Jones said he opposes Summit Carbon Solutions’ planned $5 billion pipeline that would capture the carbon emissions from renewable fuel plants across Iowa and other states and sequester it deep underground. “The pipeline will only serve to enrich people who are already very wealthy and do relatively nothing for climate change,” he said.
Summit, founded by big GOP donor Bruce Rastetter, has run into intense opposition as it’s tried to use eminent domain to force unwilling landowners in Iowa and elsewhere to sell it easements for the project, initially proposed to cross five states. Last year, South Dakota passed a law preventing the use of eminent domain for carbon capture pipelines. Summit had planned for its pipeline to cross the state to reach a sequestration site in North Dakota, but is now considering other destinations.
Iowa lawmakers also want to restrict eminent domain powers, and are trying again in this year’s session after Gov. Kim Reynolds vetoed legislation they passed last year.
Ethanol advocates say the proposed pipeline is critical to cutting the biofuel’s carbon footprint and maintaining its viability. “Iowa farmers cannot afford, literally, to be cut out of the most exciting emerging demand for corn, ultra-low carbon ethanol markets,” Monte Shaw, Iowa Renewable Fuels Association’s executive director, said in a statement Tuesday.
Iowa should consider some ‘common sense regulations’ for agriculture
Jones said he supports “common-sense regulations” that could improve water quality, like reassessing the rules around CAFOs, preventing fall tillage that puts manure on snow and frozen ground, and requiring grass buffers along waterways.
Iowa now provides millions of dollars annually to help farmers voluntarily adopt conservation practices like cover crops that keep runoff from reaching rivers, streams and lakes, as well as to build edge-of-field infrastructure like bioreactors and wetlands that clean water leaving farmland. But the state has resisted mandatory requirements.
Jones said Iowa should rethink the state’s master matrix,” which sets requirements guiding where CAFOs may be built. And “we need to return some authority to counties on livestock (facilities) siting,” he said.
Elected county officials and residents have expressed frustration that they have little power over where CAFOs are located. Projects often encounter opposition because they’re seen as being located too close to towns, schools or other places where people congregate, or as threatening environmentally sensitive lakes or streams.
Jones said the state’s CAFOs are contributing to diseases like bird flu that have resulted in millions of chickens, turkeys and other commercial and backyard birds being destroyed to prevent the disease from spreading.
“The root cause of the problem is the way we raise animals,” he said. “When we confine thousands and thousands of animals into a tight spot, disease is going to be intrinsic to that system.”
Jones said Iowa needs to “look at returning animals to more traditional methods” production, with smaller herds that graze in grass pastures.
Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, the environment and energy for the Register. She can be reached at deller@registermedia.com.
