Chris Jones

Diversify Iowa agriculture beyond a corn-and-soy-dominated landscape to improve water quality, environmental outcomes, and rural resilience.

• Calls for more perennial cover, pasture, alternative crops, local food production, and other uses that reduce dependence on the corn-soy production model.

Provide transition assistance to farmers who move toward more sustainable production while regulating pollution from producers that do not.

• Pairs financial support for farmers changing production systems with stronger pollution controls.

Reduce Iowa's dependence on corn grown for fuel ethanol and shift land toward uses Jones considers more socially and environmentally valuable.

• Argues that a large share of Iowa cropland is devoted to ethanol feedstock and supports transitioning some of that acreage toward pasture and other crops.

Connect clean water, healthy food, local food systems, outdoor access, and affordable communities as part of Iowa agricultural policy.

Use stronger regulation, land-use rules, and tax incentives to reduce agricultural pollution and diversify Iowa farming.

• Regulate pollution from the corn-soybean-CAFO-ethanol system; restore county zoning authority over livestock CAFOs; regulate nitrogen and phosphorus at the watershed level; restore riparian buffers; limit new drainage tile unless pollution is mitigated; plan a retreat from corn ethanol; incentivize alternative crops and pasture-based livestock; limit very large single-crop parcels; restrict ditch mowing/chemical use; ban fall tillage and winter manure application; require cover crops on rented cropland; tax grain-based livestock feed; use property-tax incentives tied to land quality and conservation; create markets for alternative crops; strengthen pesticide enforcement; impose major penalties for severe agribusiness pollution.

Build a more local, diversified Iowa food economy and expand rural food access.

• Provide free fruit trees and community-orchard assistance; create food-production zones around cities; source school meals from Iowa-grown food and provide free school meals; create mobile grocery services for rural towns and food deserts; develop markets for food crops beyond corn and soy; fast-track needed farm workers toward citizenship; expand parks.

Restructure public agricultural and environmental institutions and establish stronger environmental rights.

• Reduce corporate agribusiness influence over Iowa State agricultural research; reorganize Iowa environmental enforcement, including creating a pollution-control agency and shifting some functions; support a constitutional amendment recognizing clean air and clean water as fundamental rights.

Use Iowa agriculture policy to expand in-state food production, school purchasing, local processing, and market access for Iowa farmers.

• Invest $10 million annually in the Local Food and Farm Program Fund; build food hubs, storage, processing, delivery, and school-kitchen capacity; set a 10-year goal for schools to source 50% of food from Iowa; train food and farm workers through schools, FFA, 4-H, and community colleges; modernize regulations to help producers reach institutional buyers; strengthen pesticide-drift enforcement; advocate for use of USDA food dollars for local purchasing; expand beginning-farmer tax credits, long-term leases/contracts, land-transition models, and first-farm down-payment assistance.