Farming
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Guest post: Forget Project 2025. We need a better Farm Bill
When it comes to farm policy in 2025, we don’t need Project 2025. We need a new Farm Bill that acknowledges the challenges we face, tackles them head on, and puts our rural communities before corporate profits. Reading about the recent round of layoffs at John Deere’s Ottumwa plant got me thinking about the future…
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Guest post: Bohannan campaign showed anti-corporate greed message works
Christina Bohannan’s campaign website called for putting our Constitution over corporations, rejecting the corrupting influence of special interests, taking on corporate Big Ag and Big Oil giants, and fighting for a country in which people who work hard can rise above corporate greed. And it almost worked.
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Guest post: Iowa needs to stop ignoring our clean water crisis
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources needs to come clean about our dirty water.
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11,400 Iowa workers laid off in agriculture economy downturn
Yesterday, the Iowa Farm Bureau actually quantified those losses for the state’s vast, 385,000-person agriculture workforce. And it’s not good.
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Guest post: With cancer on the rise, it’s Iowans’ health vs. chemical companies
We’re in for a big fight next year that will pit multinational chemical companies and their billion-dollar profits against the health and well-being of everyday Iowans.
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Guest post: Iowa electeds siding with corporate interests on new Farm Bill
By siding repeatedly with corporate agribusiness on the Farm Bill reauthorization and not sticking up for family farmers, Iowa’s congressional representatives have let us down.
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Guest Post: We need a transparent livestock market to save family farms
Family farmers I know say we’ve been under the thumb of corporate ag bosses and the big meatpackers for too long. Political affiliation doesn’t seem to matter—they all agree something needs to be done to make our agriculture and livestock markets more open, fair and transparent. And right now, family farm cattle producers are organizing…
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Immigrant Iowans, major ag workforce, wonder if they should stay here
by Mónica Cordero, Investigate Midwest/Report for America Leer en español Having spent more than half her life in Waterloo, Iowa, she has built a life here. It’s where she met her husband and where her only daughter, who wants to become a sonographer, was born. That’s why, after a day’s work at an area meatpacking plant,…
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Gov. Reynolds announces programs to fund recovery for victims of state floods, tornados
Following a summer of disastrous floods and tornadoes, Gov. Kim Reynolds announced multiple new programs to help impacted farmers and citizens recover from damages. “We’ve all seen the photos of the neighborhoods that have been leveled, of towns completely underwater, and they’re heartbreaking,” Reynolds said during a Thursday press conference. “To see it firsthand is…
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Coalition proposes radical solution to food insecurity: Iowa farmers
The Iowa Food System Coalition wants to work with Iowa farmers to convince more of them to switch from commodity farming in an effort to boost farm-to-table food offerings. Food insecurity in Iowa has reached staggering numbers, and one organization is asking: What if the call is coming from inside the house? Iowa, a state…
