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The effects of the climate crisis in Iowa are seen year round, but during the summer it surrounds Iowans everyday. Lining the highways that connect the coasts through the country’s bucolic heartland grow the corn and soybeans that have been feeding America for centuries. The climate crisis threatens the future of our crops, and in turn, the future of those whom we feed.
Although many factors are challenging agriculture in Iowa today, including the highest inflation in 40 years, rising interest rates, high crop inputs, labor shortages, and supply chain disruptions, water quality was named as one of the top five agricultural issues at the Iowa Agriculture Summit.
Iowa is under pressure to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus that is contaminating their main waterways. Nationally, these pollutants contribute to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. The contaminants that Iowa is being urged to mitigate can be traced back to chemical fertilizers used in agriculture. Further contamination of these waterways will have devastating effects for future generation’s drinking water.
In response to these conditions, a possible expansion of navigable waterways protected by the Clean Water Act could establish regulations that enact higher costs for environmental assessments, increase time for permit applications, and lost time to apply fertilizer or engage in conservation practices–leaving Iowa farmers discontented.
If the climate crisis is ignored further, access to food will dwindle as the years pass, directly affecting future generations. As a result of the efforts of Jordan Burrows, environmental specialist at the Iowa Waste Reduction Center and her work on mapping of rural Iowa food deserts, we know that 111 communities are classified as food deserts. This statistic translates to over 41,500 Iowans living in a community where access to wholesome food is out of reach.
By increasing access to composting facilities, funding for food diversion programs, and education about our food’s full life cycle, we can address agricultural and water quality issues in Iowa and nationally. The universal use of compost in Iowa will have a direct effect on protecting the quality of our main waterways for generations to come by decreasing the need for nitrogen and phosphorus based fertilizers, providing a low cost way for farmers to remediate their soil to meet newly required environmental assessments, and producing a higher crop yield resulting in thousands more fed in food deserts
The compost that Iowa needs to promise a prosperous future for their essential agriculture is already close to home. With the development of the featured, open source, interactive map that centralizes all information relating to Iowa Department of Natural Resources permitted and permit-by-rule compost sites in Iowa, information is approachable to those who did not have access before. This introduces farmers and populations of Iowa alike to a comprehensive, but simple catalog of area-specific information for their hometown compost sites through a singular source.
This map, linked on page one, not only allows Iowans to discover curbside pickup programs and access yard and food waste drop off sites; it also encourages the use of compost at home and on farms by marking functioning compost pickup sites.
A deep dive into looking at what compost will do for Iowa youth and agriculture will present a new self-perception for Iowa and our role in revitalizing our land with our very own waste products. A focus should and will be shifted towards not only how we grow and distribute our food, but how at the end of the food’s life it can come back and regenerate a new generation of crops.
Effective programs led for Iowan youth by Iowan youth