Iowa’s factory farms produce 110 billion pounds of waste annually with little government oversight

Iowa’s industrial agriculture system generates a staggering 110 billion pounds of animal manure each year, yet state regulators have no comprehensive system to track where this massive waste stream ends up, according to a joint investigation by Inside Climate News and Sentient Media.

The state hosts nearly 8,000 concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), including facilities like Gene Tinker’s northeast Iowa farm, where over a thousand hogs are housed in enclosed structures alongside hundreds of cattle in outdoor feedlots. These operations collectively produce waste equivalent to a city of millions of people, but unlike municipal sewage systems, much of this waste flows into the environment with minimal monitoring.

Former state employees warn that Iowa’s antiquated manure management system fails to adequately track this agricultural waste, creating significant risks for water quality and public health. While proper manure management planning could help prevent fertilizer pollution from contaminating waterways, the current regulatory framework leaves enormous gaps in oversight.

The lack of tracking is particularly concerning given manure’s potential to pollute groundwater and surface water with excess nitrogen and phosphorus, which can trigger harmful algal blooms and dead zones in rivers and lakes. Environmental advocates argue that without comprehensive monitoring of where these billions of pounds of waste are applied to farmland, Iowa cannot effectively protect its water resources or hold polluters accountable for environmental damage.