Biologically/ecologically industrial ag as a non-sustainable is fairly obvious. Iowa ag is industrial, and as such is monolithic and degrades the soil quality. It is only bio-sustainable in a very big stretch of the meaning of sustainability by importing massive chemical resources, fuel, machinery rather than maintaining or increasing ecosystem quality. Further, Iowa ag is largely monolithic on a massive scale that makes it vulnerable to bio-disaster or the need for continual genetic tweaking of both seed and fertilizer, insecticide, herbicide and fungicide chemistry. Even seeds are not recycled for the next season. Farmers are prohibited from using trademarked seed brands they do not buy new each year. It’s not the same land or watershed, it is an irrigation infrastructure in the the landform itself. A natural prairie is a sustainable ecosystem that puts emphasis on roots and fewer seeds. If “natural” at all, Iowa ag is a weed ecosystem that has its strength in taking advantage of and requiring soil disturbance and high seed production. Monitoring of the industrial process and regulation for public health or the effect of degradation of the rich soil base is largely resisted and made legislatively off-limits.
The economic cost to Iowa of modern Iowa ag also challenges economic sustainability of rural communities. Main street businesses and schools and farm occupations have have dramatically disappeared statewide. Rural county populations peaked a century ago in Iowa. Now the average Iowan is four generations removed from the family farmAs a result, Iowa ag has increasingly threatened overall rural economic stability. In reality, Iowa ag is really not “Iowan” anymore. It is subject to external resources and national and global economics and designs to meet those needs and depletes the land and water quality. For the most part, and I really mean the most part, Iowa ag does not produce the nation’s food. It produces animal feed, ethanol and sweeteners. Economically, it doesn’t diversify the rural economy, and tends to only expand its interests.
In a global world economy, agriculture is world agriculture. While this sounds like the way that it has to be for agriculture to sustain, a local bio-economic sustainability does not really exist. It is corporate and industrial or “factory,” with its product being grain or livestock (with many more livestock operations than are reported so that they are not subject to any regulation), favoring fewer larger operations to survive even as a corporate model.
[millions of acres of cropland, tile drainage, more Iowa hogs than people with no sewage Tx, legislation to prevent monitoring of pollution/regulation/fees to compensate environmental impact, no adaptation o
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