AMES – Democratic Iowa Secretary of Agriculture candidate Chris Jones is rethinking Iowa’s current agricultural system to reduce nutrient pollution in waterways.
“We really have not made much progress, really, any progress, in addressing this nutrient pollution, and in some ways, we’ve gone backwards,” Jones said Wednesday evening at a campaign fundraiser.
According to the Iowa Environmental Council, 54% of Iowa waterways have impairments, meaning the waterway doesn’t meet the standards of the Clean Water Act.
“The impact on the local level would be the public health risks, nitrates in the drinking water, recreational closures,” Story County Board of Supervisors Chair Linda Murken said. “The financial strain on local governments. They’re in a position where they need to make sure that their water is safe for their residents to drink and bathe in. The local government is already stretched thin.”
Local governments struggle with limited authority as well.
“We have a joke: Watershed Management Authorities, but we don’t manage anything, and we have no authority,” Story County Board of Supervisors Vice Chair Latifah Faisal said.
Jones pitched crop diversification as one measure to address the water crisis.
“We cannot get the quality of life we want here with just corn and soy,” Jones said. “We’ve got to get our heads around the fact that corn and soy is a leaky system.”
This would also provide an additional market for farmers and reduce environmental impacts.
“We need to work on finding markets for small grains,” Murken said. “We need to work on finding food hubs. We need the support of the state government. We need support at the university level… to create the situations where they can tap into experts like Chris, they can tap into experts from Iowa State and other institutions.”
Concerns were raised about the long-term structure of Iowa agriculture.
“Trump saying he’s going to give farmers $8 billion in relief in his first term,” Jones said. “These are the sorts of policies that keep land prices inflated. I think we have to have a rethinking here about landownership: what are the landownership policies that we need to get the environmental outcomes that we want, and to get young farmers into the business, and restore prosperity to real Iowa.”
Jones previously managed the water quality testing laboratory at the Des Moines Water Works. He also developed a public water quality sensor as a research engineer at the University of Iowa, and published “The Swine Republic: Struggles With the Truth About Agriculture and Water Quality.”
For more information on Chris Jones’ policies, visit his campaign webpage.