Chris, easily my favourite field notes to date. When I think about the qualities of the US that I admire, many of them are reflected this post. Two re-wilded thumbs up 👍🏼 🌲
My wife and I have lived 35 years in northeast Iowa, but industrial agriculture is driving us out. As you mention, our best plan for escape is selling our farm as a private hunting lodge/preserve in this part of the state.
CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) combined with GMO corn have made the state's surface waters the most polluted in the nation. The soil is lifeless, just a medium to hold rowcrops in place, because anhydrous ammonia fertilizers and herbicides/pesticides have eliminated all life right down to microbial level. Iowa's air quality is putrid; due to CAFOs, the state reeks of hog manure. The agriculture industry owns the state legislature, which has cut regulation and oversight of environmental quality for more than 30 years.
Some isolated islands of land in the state (and the inhabitants thereof) may be a Tolkienesque Shire, but most of Iowa has become Mordor. All of the corn belt has become a poisoned environment - stretching across parts of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota - but Iowa is the worst.
As a consequence, Iowa's small towns are now a stark portrait of poverty, and residents of rural counties are bewildered as to how this all came about. Desperate and clueless, six of 10 voters cast their ballot for President Orange and his promise to Make American White Again - because somehow this is all the fault of the Mexicans and the Blacks.
We have to get out of this state while getting out is still possible.
Chris, easily my favourite field notes to date. When I think about the qualities of the US that I admire, many of them are reflected this post. Two re-wilded thumbs up 👍🏼 🌲
My wife and I have lived 35 years in northeast Iowa, but industrial agriculture is driving us out. As you mention, our best plan for escape is selling our farm as a private hunting lodge/preserve in this part of the state.
CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) combined with GMO corn have made the state's surface waters the most polluted in the nation. The soil is lifeless, just a medium to hold rowcrops in place, because anhydrous ammonia fertilizers and herbicides/pesticides have eliminated all life right down to microbial level. Iowa's air quality is putrid; due to CAFOs, the state reeks of hog manure. The agriculture industry owns the state legislature, which has cut regulation and oversight of environmental quality for more than 30 years.
Some isolated islands of land in the state (and the inhabitants thereof) may be a Tolkienesque Shire, but most of Iowa has become Mordor. All of the corn belt has become a poisoned environment - stretching across parts of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota - but Iowa is the worst.
As a consequence, Iowa's small towns are now a stark portrait of poverty, and residents of rural counties are bewildered as to how this all came about. Desperate and clueless, six of 10 voters cast their ballot for President Orange and his promise to Make American White Again - because somehow this is all the fault of the Mexicans and the Blacks.
We have to get out of this state while getting out is still possible.
Fantastic post