Iowa ag news!

EXCLUSIVE: Former University of Iowa professor Chris Jones has announced an exploratory committee for Secretary of Agriculture in Iowa, a major step toward running for office. @ninaelkadi.com reports:

Big news out of Iowa filings this afternoon:

Water pollution has become a bad habit for hundreds of Iowa-based ag companies, including some that boast about being "innovative" and "sustainable."

Iowa lets companies send their wastewater to municipal plants if they pretreat it and cap certain pollutants. But from January to August 2025, 38 food & ag companies broke their water permits — and only one, Agri Star, was fined (in a state settlement).

Sentient’s analysis finds 38 different agricultural companies were cited by @iowadnr.bsky.social for noncompliance with NPDES permits, and only one was fined. @ninaelkadi.com reports:

Sentient in print 📰 This past weekend, @ninaelkadi.com's reporting appeared in the print edition of @thegazette.com. In our exclusive coverage, we exposed how Iowa officials and meatpacker Agri Star coordinated behind the scenes to keep a "sweetheart deal" from the public.

An Arizona town is sinking because of poor farming practices. open.substack.com/pub/cornbelt...

i promise there’s a way to do journalism without being sponsored by an oil company

A new lawsuit In Michigan alleges that undocumented workers, who often work in dangerous environments like slaughterhouses, have been illegally denied benefits when injured on the job. @ninaelkadi.com reports:

Iowa Assistant AG wrote to Agri Star counsel that he planned to file the consent decree late in the day, as “News organizations monitor filings and may publish something before the CD is entered by the Court.” My latest on the Agri Star water pollution case, which the state settled with a 50k fine.

“Without a coordinated science-based response to address the pollution at its source, we’re only going to see rising financial and human costs for this issue." via @ninaelkadi.com

Water affordability, water safety, Big Ag, and climate change are all connected. "Agricultural pollutants in Iowa water have led public water utilities to hike rates and enact lawn watering bans." @ninaelkadi.com writes for @sentientmedia.org 💧 sentientmedia.org/iowa-beach-a...

As an AZ native, I've known this for years. And still. The madness never ceases to shock "In Arizona, 76 percent of water use goes toward agriculture. Mature alfalfa (hay) is largely used to feed cattle, and in Arizona, alfalfa is a commonly planted thirsty crop." sentientmedia.org/arizona-dese...

The summer of 2025 had the highest number of state beach advisories since the Iowa Environmental Council began tracking beach advisory data in 2014, thanks in part to pollution from farms. @ninaelkadi.com reports:

On ”trusting the science” when the “science” is written by Monsanto.

Arizona’s lax water laws let corporate farms pump unlimited groundwater to grow alfalfa for cattle overseas, even as local families spend their savings drilling new wells. NEW in Floodlight from our friends at @sentientmedia.org:

So, @revealnews.org / @motherjones.com first broke the story of foreign governments setting up massive farms in rural Arizona to suck up unregulated groundwater for export. (Also google "The Grab.") Independent newsroom @sentientmedia.org just re-upped the story, including this compelling video.

Dispatches from La Paz County, Arizona: “There’s a lot of big straws sucking out the majority of the water,” Famiglietti says. “What I didn’t have the heart to say to residents is, you just spent $100,000 on a new well but you’re probably going to have to spend another $100,000 in a few years.”

Iowa slaughterhouse Agri Star was fined just $50,000 for violating its water pollution discharge permit 60 times. This equals less than the penalty for one single day of violation under the Clean Water Act. @ninaelkadi.com reports:

"Although foreign-owned private farms make-up fewer than one percent of farms in Arizona, the outcome of the extraction, foreign-owned or not, is the same: The big guys, who can keep digging deeper and deeper, are the ones who will survive." New reporting from @ninaelkadi.com here:

Companies located in places with regulations on groundwater extraction (like Saudi Arabia) are growing their cattle feed in a largely unregulated part of the world: the Arizona desert. Local residents are losing water access as a result. My latest, from a visit to La Paz County, Arizona:

apropos of nothing, btw

Told via internal DNR, EPA, and USDA communications, here’s what was likely going on that led to a dead pig pile-up at Seaboard Triumph Foods

The US food system is BROKEN. It is just disingenuous to argue that we have “cheap food” when labor and environmental conditions are so terrible and for so long without remedy. Another admittedly gross but excellent piece by @ninaelkadi.com .

In response to my prior reporting detailing the whistleblower’s original complaint, one DNR environmental engineer wrote in an internal email: “Wow. That’s a lot worse than I had pictured in my head. I never need to go there again.”

In a recent paper, University of Iowa professor @profsecchi.bsky.social finds that the current Census of Agriculture is neither complete nor accurate, and could skew federal research and investment.

This piece from @sentientmedia.org, @ninaelkadi.com and @iowapublicradio.org highlights a difficult tension ⬇️ Meat processing plants harm people's health, but are often communities' largest employers. Moving away from a corporate, highly consolidated food system could help address this issue.

When a realtor asked Merrill Cauble about selling his land to Innovative Livestock Services for their planned feedlot, he didn’t think about it: there was no way he would sell to the organizations he deems to be wreaking havoc on Kansas. @ninaelkadi.com reports:

So grateful for AI!

In regards to resident concerns about a new feedlot, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment wrote that they do not have the authority to evaluate the feedlot’s impact on “living conditions” or “general issues related to ‘quality of life.’” s/o to @plantnerd.bsky.social for amazing edits.

“…the pipeline for workplace safety research has burst.”

New @businessweek.bsky.social feature: On a budget of $1 per American, NIOSH conducts or funds most US research on how to keep workers alive & well. The Trump Administration decided to blow it up. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... Based on interviews with 40+ current/recent staff throughout NIOSH

Another great @ninaelkadi.com piece featuring work of Jennifer Jacquet & collaborators. Jennifer spot on notes that there's no talking about reducing herds: “That is the grand narrative, I think, that we are all operating under.” 💯 small science: redefine the policy landscape to benefit industry.

"The floor is lined with so many decomposed hogs that wooden walkways were placed over their bodies for employees to get across... One photo shows what appears to be animal waste seeping into the office." sentientmedia.org/iowa-pork-pl... @ninaelkadi.com

Hydrogen sulfide, the same gas that Steven Barrows — a whistleblower who worked at Seaboard Triumph Foods — was worried about, killed six employees at this Colorado dairy. great reporting on a horrific story by @kennytorrella.bsky.social

Molly O'Toole: "On way 1st day teaching journalism course on covering immigration, met by ICE in Mt.Pleasant at Lamont - agents appear to take father driving young daughter, likely to school. Agents shoving bystanders, daughter sobs it’s her fault-she’d seen car parked for 2hrs. Trump’s America"

“It doesn't matter how much powdered sugar you sprinkle on a pile of pig shit, you'll never turn it into a jelly donut.” via @ninaelkadi.com

“North Carolina farmer Craig Watts calls himself a ‘recovering factory farmer.’” “In 2014, Watts invited an animal welfare group to film the conditions within his concentrated animal feeding operations. Thus began his life as a whistleblower.” cornbeltconfidential.substack.com/p/fields-of-...

In case you're wondering how biodigesters are doing at saving the world: In Wisconsin, private equity convinced a tiny town to serve as a conduit for almost $42 million in municipal bonds. The massive project, developed tax-free, just missed their principal payment.

I mourn my fellow journalists murdered by Israel.

Six people were killed at a Colorado dairy in an accident that is being investigated as toxic gas exposure, officials said.

R2R @ 12!

The project was "pitched as an integrated solar and chicken farm, a new land use practice known as agrivoltaics. But agrivoltaics projects typically envision animals grazing underneath solar panels — not hundreds of thousands of confined chickens packed into sheds." sentientmedia.org/in-pa-a-prop...

Reported on a proposed agrivoltaics project where chickens live in CAFOs next to solar panels

There’s an important layer not mentioned here which is that RAGBRAI has to cater to Big Ag bc Big Ag dominates our state. Fall is for harvest, spring/early summer is for planting — it’s too busy on rural roads. Winter is obviously a no-go. That leaves July. Our state is a Big Ag “sacrifice zone.”

Hey, today is a really great day to become a paid subscriber to @51st.news

The McCloskeys run Fair Oaks Farms, an interactive “Dairy Disneyland” that also houses a factory farm with around 37k cows — producing enough milk for four million school milk cartons, every, single day, Frerick says in the documentary. New piece by @ninaelkadi.com

Takedown of those who pollute our water. open.substack.com/pub/cornbelt...

A new documentary series, “The Price of Milk,” details the influence the dairy checkoff has on American eating habits, from putting more dairy into foods at chains like Taco Bell, to ensuring milk is a part of public school meals. @ninaelkadi.com reports: