Corn Belt Confidential Begins
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Somewhere in Orient, on day three of the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, I passed a rest stop informing me that if I stopped, I could “MEET A FARMER.”
I turned around.
Situated on a picturesque farm with silos and a red barn, the stop featured hard-boiled eggs on sticks, chocolate milk, pork sticks, live pigs, two porta-potties, and an “Iowa Corn” van. Outside the van, I spotted a poster showing changes in the “land required to produce 100 kg of corn,” with an “I <3 Ethanol” sticker in the corner. The poster showed how, since 1920, farmers have been able to produce more and more corn on smaller plots of land. When I asked one of the farmers working the table if there were any trade-offs to increased efficiency, he said, “no.”
Yet, even people who are in favor of ethanol and corn and mono-crops can acknowledge that increased efficiency over the past 100 years has come with its own woes.
At least, I’d like to think so.
As issues related to climate change, agriculture, water quality, and our food systems evolve, more and more headlines present information and data as if they appeared out of thin air. The context, it seems, is being lost.
The purpose of Corn Belt Confidential is to bring science and history into the conversation. Whether it’s a short explainer on the history of ethanol or an in-depth look at how pesticides disrupt the body, this newsletter aims to provide context to the headlines.
In this bi-weekly newsletter, you can expect topics like:
What happens to your body when you swim in a lake polluted with agrochemicals?
A Q&A with Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma) about ultra-processed foods.
The sordid history of E-15.
The science behind how glyphosate disrupts cells in the body.
A Q&A with Austin Frerick (author of Barons) on grocery store price gouging.
Farmers knew DDT was harmful in 1945. Corporations and the government convinced them otherwise.
…and more.
Expect original primary source research, Q&As with experts, and historical fact-checking—all in around 500 words or less. My first newsletter, a follow-up to my recent article in High Country News about a potential local concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) ban, will be a Q&A with University of Iowa Professor Silvia Secchi about the limitations of such regulations.
A little bit about me: I’m a journalist from Iowa reporting on issues related to agriculture and the environment. My work has been published in National Geographic, Civil Eats, InsideClimate News, and more.
Your free subscription to this newsletter is greatly appreciated. If you have the means, chipping in as a monthly, yearly, or a founding member would allow me to continue producing this work. Thank you for reading and joining me on this journey.
The more you study these issues, the more you will find lines connecting the dots, and even lots more dots - perhaps ones that you don't expect.
WE are all in this together, and that big WE extends far, far beyond humans in surprising ways.