Contribution short abstract

Iowa’s specialized commodity production system is high-yielding but has negative environmental and socio-economic impacts. This study shows policy-driven economic stressors such as input dependence and volatile prices can hurt farmer well-being, pointing to need for major policy reform.

Contribution long abstract

Iowa’s industrialized system of specialized agricultural commodity production produces prodigious quantities of corn, soybeans, and various livestock, but also leads to substantial negative impacts on environmental and socio-economic sustainability outcomes. While much attention is paid to the ways that the dominant production systems drive climate change through GHG emissions, contaminate waterways with nutrient and pesticide runoff, and degrade wildlife habitat, impacts on farmers’ well-being are less studied. Recent research has begun to document how specialized commodity production in the US Midwest leads to chronic overproduction and boom-bust economic cycles that create dependence on government subsidies for economic survival. In addition, a long-term shift away from using agroecological processes to manage fertility and pests engender dependence on fossil fuels-based fertilizers and pesticides. These human-caused dynamics combined with other forces outside farmers’ control such as increasingly volatile weather conditions can lead to high levels of stress and even trauma. Drawing on data from a state-wide survey and in-depth interviews with farmers in Iowa, USA, this research employs a political ecology framework to examine farmers’ perspectives on how a range of potentially traumatic forces have impacted their well-being. Survey data indicated that while weather was important, the factors with the highest negative impacts were primarily policy-driven economic stressors such as dependence on inputs, volatile crop prices, and decline in farm numbers. Interview data provided nuanced insights into these dynamics. Results point to a need for major agricultural policy reform centered on improving social and ecological outcomes.