In this special episode of Canary in a Cornfield, I take a pause from our normal programming to reflect on two years of food systems, agriculture, and public health work at the Harkin Institute. I talk about some formative academic and professional stops in the U.S., Canada, and the UK, including work connected to Oxford’s Future of Food and LEAP programs, and my discovery that global research highlighted Iowa’s outsized role in environmental and diet-related harms. I discuss how a 2024 conference tied to Industrial Farm Animal Production led to collaboration with the Iowa Environmental Council and Iowa philanthropists to fund the Environmental Risk Factors in Cancer in Iowa project, generating extensive media coverage, statewide listening sessions, and shifting political debate around water quality, nitrates, and cancer.
Links from the Episode:
Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors in Iowa Report
Iowa’s Water Crisis - Nothing Will Change if Nothing Changes report from John Norris and others
Walter Willett Interview on the EAT Lancet Report
Bob Martin Interview on the Pew Commission Report
Interim Findings Report funded by the General Assembly
