A retired University of Iowa researcher who leads a non-profit group focused on water quality issues is exploring a run for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. Chris Jones, a Democrat, is the author of The Swine Republic, a collection of essays about agricultural pollution that was published as a book in 2023.
Jones lives near Lansing in the northeast corner of Iowa. He is president of the Driftless Water Defenders, a group formed to focus attention on agricultural runoff into Iowa lakes and streams. Jones says Iowa’s alarming cancer rate — the second highest in the nation and one of only two states where it’s growing — has changed the conversation.
Jones says Iowa’s agriculture sector needs to diversify.
Jones says the ethanol industry produces way too few jobs when compared to the 11-thousand square miles of land planted with corn that’s used to produce ethanol.
Iowa has at least four-thousand confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, according to the latest EPA data. Jones has formed an exploratory committee which allows him to start raising money for a potential campaign. Jones says he’ll decide in January whether to take the next step and run for office. Jones was a research engineer for the Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research at the University of Iowa for eight years before his retirement in May of 2023. Jones graduated from Simpson College in 1983 with a degree in chemistry and biology and earned a doctorate in analytical chemistry from Montana State University.
