The Corn Belt’s Tragic Legacy

Unfortunately, when Tom met up again with Schutt, he learned that in Schutt’s family alone, there were 17 new cases of cancer or pre-cancer. His sister had died the year before of kidney cancer, and his siblings, his father, and himself were also surviving cancers or pre-cancers in various stages. In the article and in this episode of Unconfined, Tom explains how the dominance of corn and soy monocropping and the preponderance of hog CAFOs in Iowa have degraded the state’s water, and how the water crisis may be partly responsible for the cancer crisis. 

He describes the rising cancer rates as “shocking and sad” and the state’s water crisis as “appalling.” 

What’s also sad, he says, is that Iowa could have been a mecca for exquisite farming and food. It has (or had) some of the best soil in the world, rolling hills, lakes, rivers, streams, and some charming fruit and vegetable farms. But what could have been idyllic has been desecrated by agricultural runoff and pesticides that have left the Hawkeye State’s public water systems scrambling to undo the damage being done by the agriculture industry. And public water works don’t even address the tragedy happening in people’s private wells.  

Listen to the episode to learn more about what Tom learned, saw, and smelled while reporting on this story.

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In Host Notes, the voices behind Unconfined podcast deliver additional context to supplement our interviews. Their views do not necessarily reflect those of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future or the Johns Hopkins University.