Cancer
What we've come to after fifty plus years of being guinea pigs
Last week my county of Cass, the place I have lived for seventy three of my seventy six years, was designated as the county in Iowa with the highest rate of cancers. This was a shock to those attending the 99 County Project. The second tsunami was that Cass County had the second highest rate of obesity in Iowa. How’s that for attending a healthy, deliciously catered event?
Iowa Cancer Zones Map is an interactive mapping tool of cancer data for 48 cancer reporting zones in the Iowa Cancer Registry. You can map cancer incidence for the 19 most common invasive cancer and filter by sex and race/ethnicity.
To say that I am not shocked would be an understatement. When my husband Larry and I started farming in 1976, we took the organic farming path. I had no experience farming but fell in love with a farmer who knew that farming with chemicals was not for him. He did not want to be a corn and bean farmer. He wanted to grow grains and have livestock.
In March of 1976 we started our farming partnership on his mother and father’s land. Land that was historically inhabited and passed through by the Arikara and Pawnee tribes in the 18th century.
My in-laws were skeptical but willing to support us with our “alternative” agriculture adventure. Larry was influenced by the first Earth Day in 1970 while a student at Iowa State University. In 1971 he subscribed to Organic Gardening Magazine, published by the Rodale Press, when he became interested in gardening and the environment. In the early days of exploring gardening he raised red wriggler worms in the compost in the backyard of the Harris farmstead . To this day he is proud of that moment in time when he became friends with the red wrigglers.
In 1982 we became aware of the Cornucopia Project by the Rodale Center. We were influenced by this project to grow food for local consumption. We dreamed of a time when one could grow tomatoes in a hothouse attached to a power plant by using the residual energy.
So we planted two acres of strawberries, a quarter acre of raspberries, a 25 x 100’ asparagus patch and six acres of apple trees. We used organic practices - it was a helluva lot of work but we were young and ambitious. We marketed our farm as a U-Pick business. We also picked orders for customers.
Our journey into organic agriculture has certainly had its ups and downs. We struggled finding any information. The fact that Larry had grown up on the farm we were living on was a great asset. He grew up knowing the rhythm of the seasons, the daily chores that as a child he was a part of. The diversified farms of the 1950s and 60s had chickens, a milk cow or two, pigs and crop rotation that mostly kept weeds and diseases in check.
As a young newly wed couple, starting out in the world of organics we were alone. Iowa State University was no help at all. We found two farmers in Iowa, one beef and the other dairy. Our journey through this was by our faith in the earth, the teachings of those who came before us and of course Organic Gardening Magazine and Mother Earth News. The Rodale Press Encyclopedia of Composting continues to occupy our book shelf.
Fast forward to the today’s state of affairs in the farming sector of Iowa. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines agriculture is the practice of cultivating the soil, planting, raising, and harvesting both food and non-food crops, as well as livestock production. Broader definitions also include forestry and aquaculture
Many farmers know that working with nature, in partnership with soil, insects, plants water and the air is critical to good stewardship. These are the people who truly practices regenerative agriculture. They have a deep understanding of the interdependency of the earth and human beings. It is important to support these farmers and the organizations they belong to.
Agribusiness is defined as an industry or enterprise. The primary goal of agribusiness is to maximize profit while satisfying the consumers for products related to natural resources. Factory farming the land.
Many farmers practice this type of farming. They’ve bought into the American Dream of being independent; the false portrayal, a mythical image of a person being their “own” man. Unfortunately federal policy has reduced these hardworking people to tractor drivers feeding an extractive economy. Farmers use their own capital to plant, spray (or cultivate) and harvest. Some haul their grain to the local elevator or ethanol plant and receive the market price listed that day. Others watch the daily markets to determine when they can sell their commodities in the future for hopefully a higher price. What a freaking gamble!
Many people in the category of tractor drivers are good folks. They care about their family, church and community but Mother Nature has been left out of the equation.
The bottom line is that the type of farming that has been practiced for the past fifty plus years has now killed the soil and is killing many people. There is no denying. There exists pages and pages of scientific evidence that agro chemicals are deadly to humankind and every living thing.
Why do we have such a high rate of cancers in Iowa? You really want to know why? It’s due in part to the dousing of chemicals we receive from the agri-business model of growing crops. It’s caused by high nitrates in our water that is polluted by nitrogen that is used to grow corn and beans. The high nitrate is also caused by manure from the 24.7 million hogs in our state. Iowa is a monoculture nightmare.
From the report given last week at our county meeting, radon, smoking and alcohol also play a role in cancers in Iowa. Iowa Cancer Registry
There has to be a major shift in how we farm and it has to come from consumers demanding that they have a right to clean water, air and soil. Our state and our nation will continue to protect the corporations that are raping the land until people demand policy and implementation for a clean agriculture.
This country has fallen in a trap that is controlled by the wealthy and the corporations. The profits made by companies that profit by dominating Mother Nature and killing her are immoral and unethical.
It was not possible in this post to include details on obesity. My hope is to write about the in the future. No matter, it is up to us to stop destroying the earth that we depend on for life.
Recently the journal that printed the article in 2000 that supported the notion that RoundUp is safe has rescinded it stating that it has now discovered that Monsanto employees wrote it but never admitted it. It will be hard to ignore as they look at a national bill, though these days ethics and morality have less to do with governing than ever. Thanks for this Denise!
From the Cancer Gag Act demonstrations, Food & Water Watch meetings , Sierra Club events, Earth Justice, Natural Resource Defense Council reports, and too many others to mention regarding nitrates ( glyphosate, atrazine, neonicotinoids, etc) ravaging effects on every species. We’ve heard the sorrowful voices of families giving witness testimony of family members lives taken, all victims of the agrochemical industrial complex. Bayer Corporation’s Roundup has been banned in over 30 countries including the European Union, but as you point out Denise, we remain the victimized guinea pig collateral damage for international corporate profiteering. Cancer clusters, some of still unidentified strains, including leukemia now appear with frequent, frightening regularity not only in Iowa, but throughout the nation. And the world.
After paying out over $10 billion dollars in settlement payments, still denying culpability, they’re now lobbying Congress and are seeking the Supreme Court’s approval to indemnify them from further litigation, ignoring the overwhelming evidence of their guilt.
Iowa and Illinois annually trade places as the epicenter of the world’s worst concentration of these poisonous chemical contamination, and cancers. Until we unite together behind knowledgeable experts, armies of lawyers, honest law enforcement agencies, and Attorneys General, (not named Brenna Bird) we will continue seeing higher cancer rates, deaths, disabilities and other maladies. We likely will need international cooperation to prosecute, indict, convict and incarcerate these corporate criminals, who hide behind paid off corrupt politicians and their greedy cronies. We need billions of dollars in penalties, seizure of assets, significant prison sentences and passage of draconian laws to prevent them from ever practicing their deadly crimes against humanity and the planet, forever.
Okay, after taking a deep breath (inside), and lowering my blood pressure, your powerful story and courage brought halcyon memories to mind. I remembered reading the famous “Whole Earth Catalog” from the late 60’s. After Googling it, I found a slightly used copy for $150 dollars. Sure wish I could afford to purchase one and send it to you for the Holidays, Denise. You certainly deserve a good one.