The Fight for Clean Water in the Land of CAFOs

We don't need another Iowa...

I live in Northwest Missouri…land of corn and beans, and if the corporate agriculture groups have any say in it, the land of CAFOS.

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are large, mostly corporate farms that house at least 1,000 confined or stabled animals. Since 2019, when the Missouri GOP overturned local control and allowed for unregulated CAFOs in Missouri, these factory barns with thousands of animals and millions of gallons of waste can, and have, polluted our air and water.

I am a rural woman and I live in a very small town on the Iowa border, but you should know that I understand my wheelhouse and that is generally speaking on matters of education. So, when I was asked to participate on a panel of scientists and farmers in COMO and Springfield to discuss clean water, I was a little hesitant.

Why would they invite me and what could I possibly have to contribute to the conversation? I’m a former English Literature teacher, not a researcher. I try to understand climate change and pollution, but I am no expert.

And, then it hit me.

I am a rural activist fighting for our schools and our communities. CAFOs have everything to do with rural decline and the disinvestment in rural spaces. CAFOs are pushing out the small farmer in favor of corporate farming…corporate farming that uses practices that are often removed from good stewardship of the land and the water. Farming that harms rural towns and communities.

The Clean Water event was hosted to let Missourians hear from Dr. Chris Jones. Chris has spoken truth to ag power in Iowa and paid the price by stepping down from his teaching career at the behest of powerful Iowa lawmakers upset with his truth telling about Iowa water quality. He published a book that I recommend, The Swine Republic: Struggles with the Truth about Agriculture and Water Quality.

“Among midwestern Corn Belt states, Iowa contains some of the world's most productive farmland; the state frequently tops all others in harvested totals of corn and soybeans and has helped the U.S. be the world's largest producer of corn every year since at least 1961. Iowa also has a lot of animals that eat corn and soybeans. The state is first in egg and pork production and fifth in the number of feedlot cattle. Concentrating both cropland and livestock within the state has created efficiencies in production, transportation, fertilization, and accumulated wealth for a lucky few.

The immensity of this production has come at a cost: soil erosion, the loss of wildlife habitat, a lack of public parks and recreation areas, foul air from animal waste, and especially degraded water. Iowa has over 70,000 miles of streams, and only 15 segments of these meet all the designated uses outlined under the Clean Water Act. The pollutants from Iowa's rivers ultimately drain to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, part of which is killed off every summer by Corn Belt pollution from farms 1,500 miles upstream. More than 20% of Iowans drink water treated for the removal of nitrate--a regulated drinking water contaminant that results from corn and livestock production--and nearly 7,000 private wells are contaminated with this pollutant.”

Dr Jones warned Missourians at the Clean Water events that we do not want to follow the Iowa path…

Further, corporate agriculture can come in and decimate rural communities and towns. From the Missouri Rural Crisis Center: what’s at stake is the future of large parts of America’s rural environment, the health and prosperity of rural communities, economic opportunity for farm and rural families, and far-reaching questions about food safety and affordability.

For example, historically in Missouri, hog production provided a healthy economic base for farm and rural economies when the animals were owned by large numbers of independent producers who sold their hogs in competitive, open markets. Under this structure, hog production provided income to farm families, which in turn fueled local economies through such things as buying inputs locally, supporting small businesses on Main Street and a diversified tax base to fund schools, roads and public services.

In the past 35 years the hog industry has changed radically, providing a prime example of who really benefits when an agricultural industry becomes consolidated and concentrated in the hands of a few corporations. Today most of the hogs in the United States are owned or controlled by enormous factory farm corporations (over 70% of the hog market is controlled by 4 meatpackers—Smithfield Foods, JBS, Tyson & Hormel). Smithfield is owned by China’s largest meatpacker and JBS, a Brazilian company, is the world’s largest meatpacker. The facts show that this type of corporate concentration in agriculture forces farmers to receive less and less of the consumer dollar while driving up consumer prices at the grocery store.   

I know it sounds like a few unrelated topics, but the integral role of corporate ag has on schools in rural areas like mine and their decline is due to the contraction of communities, compounded by the consolidation and/or closing of rural hospitals, small businesses, and family farms. The corporate takeover of farming is proving overwhelming to rural communities.

The thing about rural decay and rural disinvestment is this: It's all related. The final straw can be an industrial CAFO coming to town and poisoning the air and water. It's all connected, but there are a lot of folks raising our voices against the politicians and the corporations who are harming rural Missourians to turn a profit off the decline in water and air quality of rural Missourians.

We will not be cowed, intimidated, or shut down. It’s time to stand up for clean water.

~Jess