A recent poll by the National Wildlife Federation showed Texas farmers and ranchers benefit from voluntary conservation programs from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and many would like to see the programs expand.

Respondents said the funding helps improve their bottom line and protect soil and water.

Aviva Glaser, senior director of agriculture policy for the federation, said Texas producers use the programs in various ways.

"Prescribed grazing and brush management and range planting were very popular practices," Glaser pointed out. "There's been the Working Lands for Wildlife program that has helped with the Monarch butterfly decline through voluntary measures the farmers (and) ranchers are doing with the help of this funding."

She noted only 5% of the more than 500 farmers and ranchers polled disagree with increasing long-term funding from the USDA.

Almost 70% of producers said designating funds specifically to help farmers adopt climate smart agriculture practices is a good use of federal money.

Glaser pointed out the wildlife federation has created a mapping tool which shows how much federal funding each state has received and outlines how farmers and ranchers are using it.

"That could be a range of different practices," Glaser observed. "Practices like cover crops or grazing management or it could be a conservation easement. It could be putting in a buffer strip."

More than eight in 10 producers support passage of a new Farm Bill. The legislation is supposed to be renewed every five years but the last version was passed in 2018.

By Nina B. Elkadi for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Mark Moran for Iowa News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

Iowa has a cancer problem: over 20,000 people are expected to be diagnosed with cancer in the next year, with over 6,000 likely to die from the disease. One of the most frequently cited reports in the state is produced by the Iowa Cancer Registry, which has historically refrained from mentioning agriculture as a potential factor in increasing cancer risk. Yet farming is the dominant industry in the state — over 85 percent of the land is devoted to agricultural use and millions of animals are raised on factory farms contributing to environmental pollution. A new initiative, co-developed by The Harkin Institute at Drake University and the nonprofit Iowa Environmental Council, aims to fill this gap and hone in on the role agriculture plays in increasing cancer risk. The initiative was announced at a conference on water quality, held at The Harkin Institute on April 16.

“Even though there are lots of groups talking about studying the high cancer rates, there are some groups that want to limit what we’re looking at when we’re having these conversations,” Adam Shriver, Director of Wellness and Nutrition Policy at The Harkin Institute, said at the conference. “They might want to look at personal behaviors like going to tanning beds or smoking or drinking. And we feel like there’s a really important part of the conversation that’s being left out.”

While behaviors like smoking and binge drinking are linked to higher cancer risk, the new initiative wants to see the link between agriculture and cancer investigated with the same rigor, especially given the prominent role of industrial animal agriculture in Iowa.

The overwhelming majority — 99 percent — of farmed animals in the U.S. are raised in factory farms. In Iowa, there are almost 124 million farm animals at any given time — around 55 million chickens, 53.4 million hogs, 11.5 million turkeys and 3.7 million cattle and cows. Manure spills are commonplace: a recent report by Food and Water Watch found that from 2013 to 2023, there were 179 documented manure spills that killed almost 2 million fish.

Sarah Green, Executive Director of the Iowa Environmental Council, tells conference attendees that Iowa’s cancer rate is not the only outlier statistic about the state. “Iowa has the most factory farm waste of any other state in the country. Iowa has more concentrated animal feeding operations than any other state in the country. Iowa is among the top five states with the highest industrial pesticide use,” she said. “What role do these factors play in Iowa’s cancer rates? What else might be at play?”

In Iowa, waterways are just as impaired as the health of its residents. Almost 2 million fish were killed from the manure spills that occurred in Iowa between 2013 and 2023. The 179 spills were documented throughout the state, with a major hotspot for spills in Iowa’s northwest corner, where hog and other livestock operations are especially dense. Earlier this year, the group reported that Iowa factory farms produce more waste than any other state, at 109 billion pounds of manure annually, based on U.S. Department of Agriculture data. In March, just one manure spill in northeast Iowa killed over 100,000 fish.

For the new initiative, researchers will conduct a review of existing scientific studies and reports for what the research shows (and what it doesn’t) about the connection between agriculture, both row crop and livestock operations, and cancer in the state. The next step is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence based on the review to recommend stronger public health policy. 

The project will also host 15 listening sessions around the state to allow Iowans to “share and record their lived experiences with cancer,” Green said. Public awareness is at the heart of the project. “This entire initiative is about each of you and about Iowans, making people’s lives better, giving families more years to make memories together, helping Iowans from all walks of life have healthier, longer futures in our state,” Green said. “The cancer crisis touches every single county in Iowa.”

The initiative is funded by the Walton Foundation, which provides funding to organizations working to protect rivers, “oceans and the communities they support,” as well as philanthropic organizations Builders Vision and Grace Communications and Iowa Radiology, a radiology imaging practice. Disclosure: Builders Vision and Grace Communications are donors to Sentient; donors have no say over Sentient’s editorial coverage or content.

In an email to Sentient, Jim Larew, legal counsel for the nonprofit environmental advocacy group Driftless Water Defenders, praised the new initiative, noting “those holding visible and prominent positions in cancer research in Iowa” have focused their attention on binge drinking, making no mention of industrialized agriculture. A more “objective” review is necessary, he wrote.

“Established institutions have a tendency to avoid naming environmental causes of cancer, which normally can be addressed by policy changes and, instead, point to behavioral contributors to new cancers. Such tendencies have the effect of insulating the investigating institutions from intense political pressures exerted by powerful industrial-agricultural oligarchs,” Larew wrote.

Shriver told Sentient in an email that the plan is to have the report on the literature review completed by fall of this year.


Nina B. Elkadi wrote this article for Sentient.


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An east Texas farming family is reaping the benefits after transitioning from industrial chicken farming to growing hemp.

For 30 years, the Halley family in Cookville raised chickens but in 2019 they started working with the nonprofit Transfarmation Project and transitioned into growing hemp.

Morgan Deany's grandfather started the business. She said over time, they realized they wanted to give back to people and animals.

"The living conditions for the animals are unhealthy," Deany explained. "It's hard for people to actually even work in that environment. It comes with awful lung infections and just all kinds of things."

The Halleys also operate an animal sanctuary on the land. The Let Love Live organization provides rehabilitation for donkeys.

The 13 chicken houses on the Halley farm were located on 50 acres of land. As contract growers, the family raised six batches of chickens per year with more than 190,000 birds in each batch. Deany noted after decades of taking from the earth, they were ready to give something back.

"It feels good to do something positive," Deany emphasized. "To bring life back around and to do something positive for people and animals and show other people that there's other options other than this big industrial farming."

She added during the transition, they have noticed a reawakening of the land.

"As good as chicken manure is for the soil, when you're operating at such a high capacity like that it really strips a lot of the nutrients," Deany pointed out. "The hemp actually regenerates the soil and it puts nutrients back into the soil and it encourages all these other forms of wildlife to come around like birds and different bugs."


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A group of Pierce County residents is awaiting a response to a petition for a contested case hearing for the expansion of Ridge Breeze Dairy to grow four times its size.

Larry Brenner, owner of Vino in the Valley, said his home, land and business is about a mile below the hill where Ridge Breeze is located. He said it makes his land and tributaries, like the Rush River running next to his property, especially vulnerable to things like manure runoff and accidents.

"That river is where my grandpa's land flowed through, so the fact that I now have a piece of that river flowing through my property, it's very special," Brenner observed. "And boy, it's threatened."

Brenner pointed out the expansion could result in almost 80 million gallons of untreated manure annually, potentially affecting water sources and causing increased odor issues and noise from hundreds of manure trucks.

Jenelle Ludwig Krause, executive director of the group Grassroots Organizing Western Wisconsin, lives about 20 minutes from Ridge Breeze. She said the personal effects of environmental and health concerns compelled her to take legal action.

Krause's mother has terminal cancer and she lost her brother to depression eight years ago. She explained when she learned that these conditions could be caused by exposure to carcinogens like those used to treat manure, she was horrified.

"Manure contains large amounts of nitrogen which is a probable carcinogen," Ludwig Krause pointed out. "The odors that come from the manure can increase anxiety and depression, and this really hit me close to home."

Both Ludwig Krause and Brenner said fighting concentrated animal feeding operations is challenging due to federal and state support but emphasized the importance of local ordinances and community involvement in curbing their growth.

"On my own, there wasn't much I could do. I felt really isolated and powerless," Ludwig Krause acknowledged. "I contrast what happened then to what's happening now, and I'm just so deeply grateful and hopeful that when people come together, we actually are building power to be able to change the things that are around us and have a voice in the decisions that impact us. "

Grassroots Organizing Western Wisconsin said it expects the expansion will be paused until the contested case hearing is resolved. In the meantime, it will continue to work with local communities to get more operations ordinances passed to help better regulate the agribusiness.


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