Corporate ag attempts to avoid accountability, again

Sales Tax Increase Is Not A Sustainable Solution For Iowa’s Water Crisis

Corporate Ag and the Greater Des Moines Partnership have proposed another so-called-solution to cleaning up Iowa’s nitrate-polluted waterways that lets corporate ag continue business as usual while taxpayers pick up the bill.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement members believe that polluters should pick up the bill and change their corporate farming methods to a more economically sustainable, environmentally friendly model of farming.

“Asking the public to pay for a problem industry created is ridiculous.” Said Cherie Mortice, Board President of Iowa CCI and retired teacher from Des Moines.  “Corporate ag continues to try to dodge responsibility and regulationIf we’re serious about cleaning up Iowa’s waterways we have to crack down on corporate ag with tough rules and standards.”

On July 7, Des Moines Register reported that “the state says water supplies of about 260 cities and towns are highly susceptible of becoming contaminated by nitrates and pollutants – about 30 percent of the state’s 880 municipal water systems”.

“Where does the responsibility lie?  I’m responsible for my farm and everything that leaves my farm, so why isn’t corporate ag? These corporations want to inundate Iowa with their factory farms but don’t want to take responsibility for the pollution that runs off the fields and into our water.”  Said Barb Kalbach, 4th generation family farmer from Dexter.  “While they continue to tout that they are ‘feeding the world’, the world would also like to drink clean water.”

Ag industry officials also say that fertilizer use is declining, but data from the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship show an increase from 3.2 million tons in 2001 to 4.8 million tons in 2013.  The amount of factory farm manure has increased drastically in the state from over 1,000 new or expanding factory farms approved by the Iowa DNR in the last three years.

“We’re trapped in a corn-and-beans, fencerow-to fencerow, fertilizer-and-manure agricultural system that benefits big agribusiness corporations like Monsanto, Cargill, ADM and Smithfield.” Said Mortice.  “They’re not interested in cooperating with the public; they’re not interested in strong public oversight.  They’re interested in making money – lots of it, at our expense and the expense of our water and natural resources. Voluntary compliance doesn’t work with corporate ag.”

“Agribusiness corporations like Cargill and Monsanto make billions of dollars from our intensive row-crop production system.” Said Kalbach. “Corporate ag is creating our water-pollution problem; corporate ag should pay to clean it up.”

Iowa’s more than 21 million hogs confined in thousands of factory farms produce nearly ten billion gallons of toxic manure every year.  There have been more than 758 manure spills since 1996 and Iowa currently has more than 725 polluted waterways. 

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