This story was originally published on Investigate Midwest.

Lisa Lawler wasn’t surprised when diagnosed with breast cancer in 2025. Her mother had breast cancer and died in 2016. It seemed like cancer had become a common diagnosis for many of her neighbors and friends. 

“With how many people seem to get cancer in our community, you just assume you will get it,” said Lawler, who lives in rural Hardin County, Iowa. “But no one really talks about what’s causing it.”

After 10 rounds of radiation and a surgery to remove the tumor, Lawler’s cancer was in remission. Last year, she took a test to determine if her cancer was likely genetic, meaning a high chance of recurrence, which could lead her to have her entire breast removed. 

She was surprised by the results. 

“The genetic test they ran for me was one that covered 81 genes that are typically related to breast cancer,” Lawler said. “After the test, they told me my cancer is likely not genetic, but likely environmental, based on these 81 genes.

“Your next thought is, then what’s in the environment that caused my cancer?” 

Increasingly, pesticides are being blamed for rising cancer rates across America’s agricultural communities. 

Hardin County, home to around 800 farms, has a pesticide use rate more than four times the national average and a cancer rate among the highest in the state. 

Most of the 500 counties with the highest pesticide use per square mile are located in the Midwest. Sixty percent of those counties also had cancer rates higher than the national average of 460 cases per 100,000 people, according to an analysis of data from both the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Cancer Institute.

Last year, Investigate Midwest, in partnership with the University of Missouri, investigated the link between agrichemicals and cancer in Missouri, finding that many were rural communities that already lacked access to health care. 

Investigate Midwest expanded on that coverage by analyzing data across the country, along with interviewing more than 100 farmers, environmentalists, lawmakers and scientists as part of a partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship. The result was the picture of a nation at a crossroads in dealing with this public health crisis that has not just been ignored by state and federal health officials, but aided.

This story was also supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

“Cancer is everywhere and it’s an experience that is unfortunately all too common,” said Kerri Johannsen, senior director of policy and programs at the Iowa Environmental Council, a Des Moines-based nonprofit that has been studying the state’s growing cancer rate. 

Agrichemicals have helped America become a crop-producing power, increasing yields of commodity crops — such as corn and soybeans — used for food, fuel and animal feed.

Sprayed from airplanes, drones, tractors and handheld devices, these chemicals can drift through the air or run off into nearby rivers and streams.

And for decades, some farmers and pesticide users have developed neurological and respiratory issues. Thousands of lawsuits have alleged that pesticides and the companies that make them were to blame. 

Pesticide manufacturers often rejected those claims while sometimes concealing research by their own employees that raised similar concerns. These companies — such as Bayer, Syngenta, Corteva and BASF — have also spent millions to lobby federal and state lawmakers for laws that would limit their legal liability and continue to allow them to sell agrichemicals. 

“This is one of the most transparently reviewed products ever,” said Jessica Christiansen, the head of crop science communications for Bayer, speaking about her company’s production of Roundup, a glyphosate-based pesticide. “This product is so well studied … been on the market for over 50 years with thousands and thousands of studies. There is no linkage to cancer, there just isn’t.”  

Under the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture have also hired dozens of former pesticide executives and lobbyists, some of whom have already pushed for deregulation of their industry. The Department of Health and Human Services has also altered its own reports to downplay the harm of pesticides. 

Two states — North Dakota and Georgia — recently passed laws limiting their residents’ ability to sue pesticide companies, and at least a dozen other states will consider similar laws in the coming months. 

“We’ve gotten to a point in the U.S. … where we’ve stopped treating pesticides as if they are dangerous tools,” said Rob Faux, who manages a small Iowa farm and has advocated against pesticide liability shield laws. “Instead, these companies tell these stories that these pesticides are completely safe and we are encouraged to use them anytime. We’ve been convinced that we must use them or we are not going to have enough food to eat.”

In Iowa, a state with heavy pesticide use — 53 million pounds last year — and the nation’s second-highest cancer rate, doctors and health officials have been sounding an alarm for years. 

The state has become ground zero in the fight to limit the impact of pesticides on health and the environment. Farmers have gathered at the state Capitol to advocate for increased laws and funding to address the rising cancer rate. That advocacy likely helped defeat a bill last year that would have protected pesticide makers from some lawsuits.

I call myself a Republican, but this is not about politics; this is about money, about the almighty dollar.”

— Bill Billings, a resident of Red Oak, Iowa, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2024

“I believe the groups wanting this (bill) to go through didn’t expect any substantial resistance, but there was enough resistance,” said Faux, who also works for the Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network, a nonprofit advocating for less agrichemical use.  

The Iowa bill was strongly opposed by environmental and health organizations, which have traditionally been left-leaning. But there was also strong opposition from many conservative residents and farmers. 

“I call myself a Republican, but this is not about politics; this is about money, about the almighty dollar,” said Bill Billings, a resident of Red Oak, Iowa, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2024. 

Initially, doctors told Billings, then 61, he would likely be dead in a matter of months after discovering lymphoma in his lungs. A health enthusiast and hospital administrator, Billings had been a regular user of Roundup, the popular Bayer pesticide used on farms and residential properties. 

“The cancer specialist said, very directly, (my) cancer is a result of being exposed to chemicals,” Billings said. “In my records, it literally says that I have cancer as a result of exposure to Roundup and agrochemicals.” 

Billings was prescribed a five-drug regimen, along with chemotherapy. In September, he was declared cancer-free. 

Last year, he hired a lawyer to file a lawsuit against Bayer. 

“The irony is … Bayer Pharmaceuticals makes one of the drugs that treated my cancer,” Billings said. “It’s disturbing to find out you are in this financial circle — not only as a consumer, but as a patient.” 

Research increasingly links pesticides to growing cancer risk 

Cancer is a complex disease and can be caused by numerous environmental and genetic factors. Some links have been clear — such as smoking and lung cancer — while other forms can be impossible to trace back to an original cause. 

But scientific research linking pesticides with certain types of cancers has been growing. 

“Our findings show that the impact of pesticide use on cancer incidence may rival that of smoking,” scientists wrote in a 2024 study, which was published in Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society.

The study linked pesticides to prostate, lung, pancreas and colon cancers. Pesticides have also been associated with lymphoma and Parkinson’s disease, the study claimed. 

Many doctors in agricultural communities say the link with pesticides is hard to deny. 

“Iowa has a super high rate (of cancer) and when you look at all of our modifiable risk factors … tobacco, obesity, too many calories, highly processed foods, lack of physical activity, alcohol consumption, getting vaccinated for HPV, sun exposure, and so on, Iowa doesn’t really stand out dramatically at any of those,” said Dr. Richard Deming, medical director at MercyOne Cancer Center in Des Moines. “But one thing that distinguishes Iowa from other states is our environmental exposure to agricultural chemicals.”

Deming and other health experts also point to Iowa’s high radon levels, a naturally occurring radioactive gas produced by uranium and radium.

The state also has high levels of fertilizer-derived nitrate in its water, which has been associated with increased cancer risk. 

“But we use tons of ag chemicals that make it quite likely that the volume of these chemicals is contributing to what we’re seeing in Iowa in terms of the increased incidence of cancer,” Deming said.

A direct correlation can be difficult to determine, as cancer development times can range from months to decades. Overlaying cancer rates onto a map, however, highlights the nation’s top crop and vegetable growing regions, where pesticide use is highest. 

The Midwestern states of Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Missouri — leading corn-growing states — had the highest rates, while rates were also high in California and Florida, high fruit-growing states. 

Lawler, who developed breast cancer in Hardin County, grew up on her family’s 400-acre farm, where her father grew corn and used 2,4-D, a pesticide made by Dow Chemicals. She and her siblings moved out of state after high school, but Lawler returned in 2010. 

Pesticides have become indispensable in farming, Lawler acknowledged, but she wishes more people would ask questions about the risks. 

“We change products all the time when we learn about the health impacts,” Lawler said. 

As lawsuits mount, Bayer pushes state laws to limit liability

In early 2022, Rodrigo Santos had just been promoted to the head of Bayer’s crop sciences division, a prestigious position within the German-based chemical company. But a global pandemic, climate change and a pending war in Ukraine were disrupting the global production and sale of crops — a direct hit to the company’s pesticide sales.

“The global food system is in crisis,” Santos wrote in a column for the World Economic Forum, going on to say that the world needed to grow more food without a significant increase in the amount of land devoted to crops. 

But beyond the pandemic and war, another crisis presented an existential threat to one of the company’s top-selling products. Roundup, the glyphosate-based weed killer produced by Monsanto, which Bayer bought in 2018, had been blamed for causing cancer in thousands of lawsuits. 

In 2019, a California jury ordered Bayer to pay $2 billion in one lawsuit (the amount was later reduced). Since then, more than 65,000 lawsuits have been filed against the company, according to Bayer, and the company has agreed to pay more than $12 billion in settlements. 

Since purchasing Missouri-based Monsanto, Bayer’s stock price has dropped more than 90% over five years. 

In recent years, Bayer executives, including Santos, openly discussed discontinuing glyphosate production. We are “evaluating all the alternatives that we have for the business,” Santos told investors last year when asked about a possible sale of its Roundup division. 

But while Bayer publicly said it was reconsidering its glyphosate business, a review of lobbying disclosure statements, campaign finance records, state legislative records and other documents reveals the world’s largest pesticide company remains committed to expanding its sales. 

Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the EPA regulates the warning labels on pesticide products. While state-level lawsuits have claimed that federal labeling is insufficient, pesticide companies, including Bayer, have argued that federal regulations should trump state laws. 

Bayer, along with other corporate agriculture groups, has pushed for bills in more than a dozen states that would codify the view that federal labeling regulations are sufficient warning, effectively voiding state-level lawsuits. 

Christiansen, the head of crop science communications for Bayer, disputed that these laws will stop lawsuits and said courts have yet to begin interpreting those that have passed. 

“Folks can still sue a company, and they should if there’s a problem,” Christiansen said. “But the litigation industry has a lot to lose with these (bills) that are out there.” 

Founded by Bayer, the Modern Ag Alliance has lobbied for these bills and promoted opinion articles downplaying the health impacts of pesticides. 

“If farmers lose access to crop protection products because of misguided ideological agendas, U.S. agriculture would be upended, potentially forcing many family farms to shut down and driving up food costs for every American,” said Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, executive director of the Modern Ag Alliance.

The Modern Ag Alliance has spent more than a quarter of a million dollars on state lobbying since 2024.

In Idaho, the organization spent one in four lobbyist dollars last year. In Iowa, Bayer has spent $209,750 on lobbying since 2023, double what the company spent in the previous decade. 

Most of the bills came up short in 2025, but Georgia and North Dakota passed liability shields that will complicate local lawsuits. 

Georgia’s Senate Bill 144, which took effect Jan. 1, received some bipartisan support but was mostly approved by the Republican majority and opposed by Democrats. 

Similar bills have been filed in at least 10 states for this year’s legislative sessions. 

In 2024, the Iowa bill was passed by the state Senate with a 30-to-19 vote. Ahead of a vote in the House last year, farmer and environmental groups lobbied against the bill. 

The session ended without the House taking up a vote. The bill could return in 2026, but Faux, the Iowa farmer, said he also worries about it being “snuck into” another bill or budget agreement. 

“I don’t think we can just assume this fight is over,” Faux said. 

In other states, backlash seemed to stop liability shield bills before they got started.

In Oklahoma, Rep. Dell Kerbs, a Shawnee Republican, authored a pesticide liability shield bill he said was meant to end “frivolous” lawsuits against pesticide makers. 

“What’s happened in our country is we have … judges that have decided they need to be in the labeling business,” Kerbs said when introducing his bill at a Feb. 11, 2025, hearing of the House agriculture committee. 

State Rep. Ty Burns, another Republican, asked Kerbs why he chose to author the bill. 

“I was first approached by Bayer,” Kerbs responded. 

“But this is a labeling bill; it is not an immunity bill. It is just clarifying on EPA labeling regulations,” Kerbs added. “There is nothing that prevents a lawsuit from any single person. This is not giving a free pass to kill people. This simply is saying that a frivolous lawsuit to potentially pad the pocket of somebody who was not reading the label is not a justification to add that to a label through a state district court.” 

But when Burns asked Kerbs about opposition to the bill, especially from many farmers, Kerbs denied receiving any complaints. 

“That is hard to believe,” Burns told Kerbs, “because I have been bombarded.” 

The bill was never presented to the House for a vote. 

After early promises, MAHA walks back pesticide oversight

While liability shield laws have been largely advanced by Republican lawmakers, the push to further regulate pesticides has transcended partisan lines. 

Both left-leaning environmental groups and conservative health movements, which have targeted agrichemicals and some vaccines, have called for reducing or eliminating the use of pesticides. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been a longtime critic of pesticides. In a May 2025 report, his Make America Healthy Again commission linked pesticide overuse to children’s health issues, which drew praise from both political camps. 

George Kimbrell, co-executive director of the Center for Food Safety, which has advocated for stronger pesticide regulations, called the initial report a “baby step” forward and said he was encouraged after decades of inaction by the federal government. 

“Going back my entire career, 20-plus years now of doing this work, it doesn’t matter if it’s a Democratic administration or a Republican administration, they have been beholden to and done the wishes of the pesticide industry,” Kimbrell told Investigate Midwest last year. “So, this is a unique moment where … there’s a chance that there could be some positive change in terms of responsible oversight for these toxins.”

Corporate agriculture groups heavily criticized the report, including the American Farm Bureau Federation and CropLife America, a national organization representing many large agrichemical companies, including Bayer, Corteva Agriscience and Syngenta. 

Many of those groups and companies had been large financial backers of Trump. But Kennedy downplayed any concerns that the president would avoid taking a hard position against pesticide companies because of that support. 

“I’ve met every president since my uncle was president, and I’ve never seen a president (like Trump), Democrat or Republican, that is willing to stand up to industry when it’s the right thing to do,” Kennedy said at a May 22, 2025, MAHA commission meeting as the president sat smiling to his right. 

Three months later, Kennedy’s MAHA commission published its final report, which contained no calls to further regulate pesticides. In fact, it called for the federal government to work with large agrichemical companies to ensure public “awareness and confidence” in the EPA’s current pesticide regulations. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment from Kennedy.

Many of the groups that expressed optimism over the initial report were outraged over the change. 

“This report is … a clear sign that Big Ag, Bayer, and the pesticide industry are firmly embedded in the White House,” said David Murphy, the founder of United We Eat and a former finance director for Kennedy’s presidential campaign. 

The Trump administration has employed several pesticide executives, researchers and lobbyists at the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Kyle Kunker, who was a registered lobbyist for the American Soybean Association, an organization that has advocated for the legal liability shield laws at the state level, was hired last year to oversee pesticide policy at the EPA. 

Three weeks later, the EPA recommended expanded use of dicamba-based herbicides, which federal courts had previously restricted. The EPA proposal was closely aligned with the position of the American Soybean Association. 

In 2025, the EPA also hired Nancy Beck and Lynn Ann Dekleva, both of whom worked with the American Chemistry Council.

Last month, a coalition of MAHA supporters called for the removal of Lee Zeldin, administrator of the EPA. 

Recent EPA decisions around pesticides “will inevitably lead to higher rates of chronic disease, greater medical costs, and tremendous strain on our healthcare system,” the group stated in a petition circulating online. 

Several prominent MAHA influencers have joined the petition, posting anti-pesticide messages on social media under handles such as The Glyphosate Girl and the Food Babe. “The EPA is acting like the Everyone Poisoned Agency,” wrote Kelly Ryerson, on her Glyphosate Girl Instagram feed. 

As the EPA advances pesticide use, the Trump administration has also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that federal labeling laws invalidate state-level lawsuits. 

“After careful scientific review and an assessment of hundreds of thousands of public comments, EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans, and the agency has repeatedly approved Roundup labels that did not contain cancer warnings,” Trump’s solicitor general wrote in an amicus brief with the Supreme Court. 

However, one of the studies the EPA has often cited in claiming pesticides are safe was recently retracted due to concerns about its authorship and potential conflicts of interest. 

The report, published in 2000 by the scientific journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, claimed Roundup “does not pose a health risk to humans.” The report has been the foundation for numerous other studies, court cases and policy decisions. 

The journal retracted the study last year, noting that court cases had revealed that Monsanto employees had contributed to the study. “This lack of transparency raises serious ethical concerns regarding the independence and accountability of the authors of this article and the academic integrity of the carcinogenicity studies presented,” the retraction stated. 

“This is just one example of how the current process of certifying these chemicals is broken in the U.S.,” said Colleen Fowle, water program director at the Iowa Environmental Council. “At the very least, we’re hoping that this (retraction) eliminates this specific research article from being cited in the future and concentrates more on independent peer-reviewed research as our basis to determine the safety of glyphosate.”

This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom whose mission is to serve the public interest by exposing dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism. Visit online at www.investigatemidwest.org

Pesticide use and cancer risk rise together across America’s heartland is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The cool morning spring breeze hit Saundra Traywick “like a punch to the face.”

Walking through her wooded 38-acre donkey farm in central Oklahoma in early 2019, Traywick suddenly found it hard to breathe as the air smelled “toxic” and “like death.” 

Less than a mile away, a truck was spreading a chunky dark fertilizer on a 50-acre hay farm, a familiar ritual in this rural community just beyond Oklahoma City’s northeast suburbs.

But this fertilizer was putting off a smell that Traywick had never encountered. She soon discovered the fertilizer was made from processed sewage.

Converting sewage to fertilizer saves cities money on landfill costs, is a cheaper nutrient-rich fertilizer for farmers, and has become a billion-dollar industry for a handful of companies. However, biosolid fertilizer has been shown to contain chemicals that can harm the environment and human health. 

“Essentially anything that goes down the drain ends up on these fields,” said Traywick, who, months after first learning about biosolid fertilizer, urged the nearby town of Luther to ban it, which city leaders did in 2020. 

Scientific studies are increasingly warning about the PFAS chemicals found in biosolid fertilizers. PFAS — short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also called “forever chemicals” — can be found in many water- and heat-resistant products, personal hygiene materials, medication and industrial waste.  

But while some states have recently restricted or banned biosolid fertilizer entirely after finding it contaminated farmland and groundwater, Oklahoma lawmakers and environmental officials attempted to take steps this year to protect cities and corporations from liability if new health problems are found. 

The EPA estimates that as much as 3.5 million dry metric tons of treated sewage waste is spread as fertilizer across the country yearly — enough to cover the entire state of Missouri. 

Oklahoma has one of the most extensive biosolid fertilizer programs in the nation, as more than 80% of the state’s wastewater sludge ends up on crop fields, according to Investigate Midwest’s analysis of state records.

Synagro, a Goldman Sachs-owned company that spreads most of the biosolid fertilizer in Oklahoma and across the country, has lobbied against new regulations over “forever chemicals” in its fertilizer, even as it faces lawsuits from farmers claiming its product has devalued their land and created numerous health problems. “Biosolids are a nutrient-rich end-product of the wastewater solids treatment process that have been treated to ensure safe use in agricultural land application,” the company said in a statement. 

The issue has also taken center stage in an Oklahoma state House race as a longtime lawmaker who uses biosolid fertilizer on his land risks losing to a challenger who wants to end the practice. 

“I’d say it’s one of the main issues,” Traywick said about the upcoming state House election. 

While scientists have discovered PFAS chemicals already exist in the blood of nearly every living person and animal on the planet, recent studies have raised concerns about increased PFAS exposure through its presence in biosolid fertilizers, which impacts the air, water and food.  

• Air: UCLA researchers found that microplastics in biosolid fertilizer are highly suitable to wind, “thereby increasing … inhalation health risks,” such as lung tissue damage, according to a study published in January. 
• Water: Groundwater near biosolid fertilizer-applied fields often have elevated rates of PFAS, sometimes at higher rates than what is deemed suitable for human consumption, according to a 2024 study published by the American Chemical Society. 
• Food: In 2022, beef from a Michigan farm was contaminated with high levels of PFAS that officials said came from biosolid fertilizers. 

“The scientific community has put a lot more focus (recently) on PFAS and how dangerous they can be even at low levels,” said Jared Hayes, a policy analyst with the Environmental Working Group who specializes in “forever chemicals.” 

In response to growing health concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency recently announced it will require municipal water systems to remove nearly all PFAS substances. These regulations, some predict, could cost as much as $3 billion in new equipment nationwide. 

However, the new rules don’t change the current standards of PFAS exposure in fertilizer. 

“There are a lot of unknowns of what we are going to do with the biosolids,” Hayes said.  

Biosolid fertilizer rankled a town and a state House election

Driving down a rolling two-lane road in central Oklahoma, Jenni White lifted her right hand off the steering wheel of her silver Honda CRV to point to another field that uses biosolid fertilizer. 

“That field is one of the worst; I mean, I was hacking up a lung when it was spread, I could not catch my breath, it’s so strong,” said White, pointing through her bug-splattered windshield. 

As she passed the next field, White recalled that the farmer had recently stopped using biosolid fertilizer when his neighbors complained. “I think he just thought it wasn’t worth the hassle,” White said.

White was mayor of Luther in 2020 when Traywick, the area donkey farmer, approached the town with concerns over biosolid fertilizers. White was already aware of its use but believed Traywick’s activism warranted discussion among Luther’s five elected trustees. 

A ban in Luther wouldn’t impact many farmers, as the town is less than five square miles and most of the area farms are outside its boundaries. But the discussion drew a visit from two officials from Synagro. 

One of the officials, identified as Layne Baroldi by the Luther Register, gave a presentation on the benefits of biosolid fertilizer. 

Baroldi said California had some of the strictest environmental regulations in the country — you “can’t cough without getting cited,” so the fact that biosolid fertilizer is allowed there should be reassuring to folks in Oklahoma. “Putting it on the ground was (the) best practice,” Baroldi told the trustees. 

But the presentation wasn’t enough, as the trustees voted to enact the ban. 

(Investigate Midwest spoke to five Oklahoma farmers who use biosolid fertilizers but none would speak on the record due to local opposition. Most said their fertilizer costs would increase significantly if biosolid fertilizer were unavailable. “I got an extra hay cutting this year after using it,” one Oklahoma farmer said.)

While the Luther ban only impacted a few farmers, White, whose term as mayor ended in 2021, believes it was an important message from a community where agriculture remains a vital part of the local identity. 

“We’ve been called a bunch of crazy environmental activists, but I don’t know how it’s crazy to make sure your food and water aren’t contaminated for your kids,” said White, a Republican who drinks from a Donald Trump-themed thermos while driving. 

“A Democrat or a liberal is going to drink the same tainted water that a Republican or conservative is. Everybody is screwed, it’s not a selective screwing,” she added.

But biosolid fertilizer is rankling local Republican politics as it’s become a central issue in the race for House District 32, which is near Luther. 

Incumbent State Rep. Kevin Wallace appeared to be a lock for reelection. He has represented the heavily conservative seat for five two-year terms and has risen up the ranks of Republican politics, including as chair of the high-profile House budget committee. 

However, Wallace’s use of biosolid fertilizer on his land has drawn criticism from some voters. During a June 4 candidate forum, Wallace was confronted by some constituents who asked why he wouldn’t come out against the fertilizer, what they called “humanure.” 

“The biosolids sludge is regulated by the Department of Environmental Quality, I have used it twice … it has been legal to use in this state for eight years now,” Wallace said at the forum.

Wallace acknowledged he had received complaints from his neighbors, but “property rights is what I’m for … (and) I’m not breaking the law,” he told the audience. 

Two weeks later, Wallace finished second in the Republican primary, advancing to an Aug. 27 runoff against challenger Jim Shaw, who opposes the use of biosolid fertilizer. 

Wallace declined an interview request but in an emailed statement said biosolid fertilizer was “heavily” regulated at the state and federal levels. 

“I have had the Department of Environmental Quality into the district in the past to answer questions at a forum and the state of Oklahoma has worked directly with top administrators at the EPA in Dallas on this issue to ensure environmental standards are met,” Wallace said in his statement. “The bottom line is, the only alternative to current disposal of biosolids is for more of it to be dumped in landfills, which will create more landfills in rural Oklahoma.”

More than 44,000 metric tons of biosolids were applied on Oklahoma fields in 2023, according to records from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, which issues permits to apply biosolid fertilizer. Around 40% of all biosolid fertilizer in the state was processed by Oklahoma City waste. 

Oklahoma has limits for 10 pollutants in fertilizer, including mercury and arsenic. State laws also require fertilizer to have a solid consistency of greater than 50%, be tested for viruses and to raise the pH level, which is most often achieved through the use of lime. 

But Shaw, the District 32 challenger who finished first in the June Republican primary, said if he were elected it would send a message that “the majority of people out here are saying no to this practice.” 

“I would say the awareness of (biosolid fertilizer) has significantly increased in recent months, especially during the campaign,” Shaw said. “I’m all for property rights but my right to swing my fist stops where it hits your nose, … and once (the fertilizer) is applied it does reach beyond the four corners of your property.” 

Federal regulations spurred a biosolid industry controlled by a few companies

When Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1974, cities and towns faced stricter rules on how to process sewage. New biosolid materials needed to be disposed of and a handful of companies launched in an effort to fill the need. 

Business picked up over the years as new rules were set, including a federal ban on dumping biosolid material in the ocean. 

Established in 1986 in Texas, Synagro contracted with hundreds of cities to handle its biosolid waste, including land application as fertilizer. In 2000, the company purchased BioGro, another large biosolid firm, becoming the largest biosolid handler in the nation. 

Synagro is a privately held company, so its valuation isn’t publicly available. However, in 2013 a European investment firm purchased the company for $480 million. 

Since then, Synagro has acquired several other companies, entered the Canadian market and nearly doubled the number of municipal and industrial wastewater facilities it contracts with. 

In 2020, Syangro was sold for an undisclosed price to West Street Infrastructure Partners III, an investment fund managed by Goldman Sachs.

Today, the company operates 24 facilities in the U.S. and Canada and handles 6.5 million tons of biosolid material annually, according to a 2023 company report. 

“Biosolids are a nutrient-rich end-product of the wastewater solids treatment process that have been treated to ensure safe use in agricultural land application,” a company spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to Investigate Midwest. “Biosolids provide multiple benefits to overall soil quality and health, including improved moisture absorption ability, recycling of micro and macro nutrients, carbon avoidance, reduced nutrient leaching, and lower use of industrially produced chemical fertilizers. U.S. EPA and state environmental agencies have approved and regulated biosolids for decades and multiple risk assessments and scientific studies have found that biosolids recycling presents little to no risk to human health and the environment.”

Synagro handles much of the biosolid material produced by Oklahoma City’s wastewater system, although it doesn’t contract directly with the city. 

Oklahoma City contracts with Inframark to manage its wastewater system. Inframark then sells the biosolid material to Synagro. 

“The city of Oklahoma City (does not) have a direct contract with Synagro,” said Jasmine Morris, a spokesperson for the city, when asked why Investigate Midwest was unable to get a Synagro contract through an open records request. “Under contract with (Oklahoma City), Inframark is responsible for the disposal of biosolids. Under said contract, what Inframark self-performs, or who they subcontract to, is at their discretion. Currently, they are using Synagro South LLC for this activity, but the terms of their contract with Synagro are not disclosed to (the Oklahoma City Water Utilities Trust).”

Amid the increased focus on PFAS chemicals in waste and fertilizer, Synagro has also lobbied to ensure cities and companies are not held liable. 

In 2022, the company created a nonprofit business association called the Coalition of Recyclers of Residual Organics by Practitioners of Sustainability (CRROPS). Synagro’s CEO, Bob Preston, serves as chairman of the organization, which has spent $220,000 on federal lobbying since its founding, according to lobbying disclosure forms. 

Last year, as the EPA considered new rules on PFAS levels in drinking water, the coalition urged lawmakers to shield companies and cities from legal liability. 

“We write to urge that any legislation … include a specific provision to ensure that the organizations we represent are explicitly recognized as ‘passive receivers’ of PFAS and afford these essential public services a narrow exemption from liability under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA),” CRROPS wrote in an Aug. 24, 2023, letter. 

But as Synagro attempts to someday prevent lawsuits, legal challenges have already arrived. 

Earlier this year, five Texas farmers sued Synagro, claiming their properties were “poisoned by toxic chemicals” in the biosolid fertilizer the company spread on nearby farms. Some of the plaintiffs also claim they began suffering from respiratory problems and skin irritation when the biosolid fertilizer was spread. 

Many of the plaintiffs also claim their groundwater has elevated levels of PFAS, with one farmer stating that a serving of one fish from his pond would exceed the EPA’s recommended PFAS exposure by 30,000 times.  

For the past five years, Synagro has contracted with the city of Fort Worth to manage its biosolids programs and has spread the processed waste in 12 north Texas counties. The lawsuit claims Synagro should have issued stronger warnings about its fertilizer product. 

“Synagro knew, or reasonably should have known, of the foreseeable risks and defects of its biosolids fertilizer,” the lawsuit states, which was filed in Maryland, where Synagro is based. “Synagro nonetheless failed to provide adequate warnings of the known and foreseeable risk or hazard related to the way Synagro (Granulite) was designed, including pollution of properties and water supplies with PFAS.” 

In a statement to Investigate Midwest, Synagro denied the allegations, calling them “unproven and novel.” 

“As a matter of fact, without any response from Synagro, the plaintiffs have already amended the complaint to drastically reduce the concentrations of PFAS alleged in the complaint when it was originally filed,” the company said in an emailed statement. “The biosolids applied by a farmer working with Synagro met all U.S. EPA and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) requirements. U.S. EPA continues to support land application of biosolids as a valuable practice that recycles nutrients to farmland and has not suggested that any changes in biosolids management is required.”

Some push for nationwide regulations 

As Synagro lobbies for federal liability protections, lawmakers in Oklahoma recently considered a similar proposal that would protect cities and companies from lawsuits if the biosolids they produce and convert into fertilizer were later found to be harmful. 

Oklahoma House Bill 2305 stated that a waste management or disposal company, along with a public wastewater treatment facility, “shall not be liable … for costs arising from a release to the environment of a PFAS substance” as long as state laws are followed. 

The bill received overwhelming bipartisan support in both the House and Senate but failed to receive final approval before the legislative session ended in May. 

During an April 4 Senate committee hearing, Sen. David Rader, a Tulsa Republican, presented the bill and said he wanted to ensure cities were protected from liability since they were not responsible for producing the chemicals found in biosolid fertilizers. 

But one lawmaker asked if the bill would still protect polluters. 

“Does this create an alibi for the person who pollutes a water source and says, ‘I followed the state procedure, so it’s not my fault?’ ” asked Sen. Dusty Deevers, an Elgin Republican. 

“I suppose it could,” Rader answered. 

Scott Thompson, then the director of the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, was also in the room supporting the bill.

“(Cities and towns) are receiving this PFAS in the waste stream … what we are concerned about is the future liability under the federal law as they get passed,” Thompson told lawmakers. “(The EPA) is going to very tiny numbers that we have to measure and essentially creating potential liability for everyone that has to receive this and manage it.” 

Asked about Thompson’s comments, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality officials reiterated their support.

“DEQ would support some version of federal legislation that provides protection for certain passive receivers who provide critical, public health services,” said Erin Hatfield, the agency’s director of communications and education. “As for increased PFAS standards, DEQ would like to see additional research done to further determine health impacts related to PFAS and standards based on scientific findings.”

Other states have said the health impacts are already apparent and biosolid fertilizer should be banned or severely restricted. 

In 2022, the Maine legislature banned the use of biosolid fertilizer and allocated $60 million to help contaminated farms, including many dairy farms that were forced to shut down. 

In Michigan, where cattle farms have been forced to shut down due to tainted beef, biosolid PFAS standards are stricter than in most states. The state also has an aggressive investigation program to try to identify the specific source of PFAS contaminants. 

However, some environmental watch groups have scoffed at a state-by-state approach, calling for nationwide regulations instead. 

Earlier this year, the Maryland-based environmental nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, sued the EPA over the lack of biosolid fertilizer standards. 

“EPA has deemed it acceptable for biosolids containing PFAS and other known toxic chemicals to be applied directly to soil as fertilizer, where these man-made contaminants then build up in the environment, exacerbating the PFAS contamination crisis,” Tim Whitehouse, PEER executive director, wrote in a Feb. 22, 2024, letter to the EPA. “This is not protective of human health or the environment.”

The EPA declined to comment on pending litigation. 

While the EPA has made progress on congressionally mandated PFAS rules related to drinking water, it has yet to complete a risk assessment of PFAS in biosolid, according to tracking by the Environmental Working Group nonprofit. 

“We are really hoping to see them finish that up by the end of the year and to really get a good picture of just how much of our overall exposures to PFAS is the result of PFAS in biosolid potentially contaminating our food supply and our environment,” said Hayes, the policy analyst with EWG. “In the meantime, states have been leading the charge and taking action.” 

Fertilizer from human waste faces scrutiny but remains a profitable industry is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

As Jess Bray pulled up to a 21-acre farm nestled in an eastern Oklahoma valley, she instantly got a warm feeling. “This is the place,” she thought. 

After attempting to buy two other properties before being outbid by cash buyers, Bray and her husband Jon began to wonder whether their dream of owning and operating their own farm would become a reality.

“We always wanted to farm, but we aren’t trust fund kids, we didn’t grow up in agriculture … we didn’t have a farm handed down to us, so it wasn’t something that was very accessible to us,” Bray said. “This was a dream come true … but it wasn’t without challenges.”

In 2022, Bray, then 39, purchased the valley property, which they now operate under the name Blue Mountain Farm, growing a variety of vegetables and raising pigs and a dairy cow near the town of McCurtin.

While Bray eventually realized her dream, the rising cost of farmland has priced out many other would-be farmers and ranchers or forced others into early retirement. The parts of the country where farmland prices have seen the largest increase have also been where the number of agriculture producers has declined the most.

From 2017 to 2022, the average value per acre of all American farmland grew from $4,368 to $5,354, an increase of nearly 23%, according to USDA data on the market value of farmland and its buildings.

But in the 409 counties across the country that saw a producer decline of 15% or greater over the past five years, average farmland values increased by 31%, according to Investigate Midwest’s analysis of USDA reports, land value records and other property data.

In reviewing property records and speaking with more than a dozen officials who closely track farmland values, Investigate Midwest found there are multiple causes for the decline in producers in counties that saw the most significant increase in value:

• Population growth expanding into rural communities has increased prices and reduced farmland as 11 million acres of agricultural land were converted into residential properties from 2001 to 2016, according to the American Farmland Trust.
• The push toward wind and solar energy, often backed by government subsidies, has also raised land rents much higher than for traditional agricultural use. 
• Large investment firms, such as Farmland Partners, PGIM and Gladstone Land, are paying top dollar for land and reselling some property at amounts as much as five times higher than the regional average. 
• The move toward industrial farms has also meant more corporate land buyers who can pay cash and beat many local offers. 

“The biggest competition (for farmland) used to be from the person who wanted a hobby farm but maybe wasn’t farming full time,” said Vanessa Garcia Polanco, a policy campaign director with the National Young Farmers Coalition. “Today, the biggest threat we see is from corporations and hedge funds.”

The increase in competition for farmland has been especially detrimental for young and would-be farmers. According to a 2022 National Young Farmers Coalition survey,​​ 59% of farmers under 40 said finding affordable land was “very or extremely challenging.”

Farmland ownership has received increased attention from lawmakers in recent years, especially concerning foreign-owned companies. Lawmakers in dozens of states have pushed laws limiting foreign land ownership, including from countries like Iran and China, often claiming these buyers drive up costs that push out family farms. 

However, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently called that focus misguided and said the growth in American investment firms buying farmland is a more pressing concern. 

“Do you know roughly a third of all the farming operations that generate more than $500,000 in sales are owned by investment outfits? Are you concerned about Wall Street owning farmland?” Vilsack said in response to a question about foreign-owned land while speaking at the North American Agricultural Journalists conference in April.

But Paul Pittman, the executive chairman of the investment firm Farmland Partners, said companies like his were not to blame for rising prices and were keeping many farms in production. 

“That’s populist B.S. and nothing less,” Pittman told Investigate Midwest when asked about Vilsack’s comments. “And remember, for every farmer who is whining about being outbid, there’s a farm family that owned that farm for 100 years and deserves to get the highest price possible.”

Investment firms significantly increase farmland holdings

In the spring of 2023, the Farmland Partners investment firm spent $8.85 million in cash on 1,840 acres of farmland in Haskell County, Oklahoma. The land was a highly productive swath of soybean, corn and wheat fields with an irrigation system pulling water from the nearby Canadian River.

The Denver-based firm had grown in recent years to become the nation’s largest farmland investor, with a valuation of more than half a billion dollars and a portfolio of more than 180,000 acres across the country.

One of the firm’s land buys in Oklahoma was a 174-acre property for $3 million. At $17,232 an acre, the Oklahoma purchase was five times more than the median for comp sales in the area, based on data from the land value tracking site AcreValue. 

However, the firm had shown that its high purchase prices were likely to pay off. It had recently sold nearly 2,500 acres of farmland in central Nebraska and South Carolina for a combined $16.2 million, a transaction that netted Farmland Partners a 24% return on investment, the company announced.  

According to data from the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries, investment firms increased their farmland holdings by 231% from 2008 to 2023. While traditional real estate property is constantly expanding, many investors see the decrease in available farmland as a partial driver of its value. 

Most farmland investment firms lease the land back to producers who operate the entire farming business. In a recent SEC filing, Gladstone Land, which owns 111,836 acres of farmland across 15 states, said it rents most of its land to farmers on a “triple-net basis,” which means the tenant pays the related taxes, insurance costs, maintenance, and other operating costs in addition to rent.

However, Pittman, the chairman of Farmland Partners’ board of directors, said there are signs that more farmers are struggling to afford rents.

“There’s a little more trouble out there than there was 12 months ago ... and we’re seeing it in having an occasional farmer come to us and say, ‘Hey, can you re-rent this farm to someone else?’ ”Pittman said on a May 1 investor call, according to a transcript. “When we’ve had that occur, we’ve been able to (re-rent) the farms at the same price or in some cases, a little bit higher.”

Asked about Vilsack’s comments, Pittman said declining commodity prices are pinching some farmers. 

“Starting in about 2019, commodity prices started to go up pretty fast, but here we are in 2024, and commodity prices have pulled back,” Pittman told Investigate Midwest. “This is a low margin business … so when you see a little bit of a drop in commodity price, it can challenge (a farmer) financially.”

However, Pittman said his firm’s investments remain solid because, in the agriculture sector, “bankruptcies are minuscule.”  The 2022 farm bankruptcy rate was 0.84 per 10,000 farms, its lowest rate in nearly 20 years. 

While most farmland is rented to producers, there are times when an alternative use can fetch even more money. Wind farms can attract lucrative rents and often allow the land to remain agricultural. However, the growth in solar farms, which also attract high rental rates, usually means the land can no longer be used to grow crops or raise livestock because of the large solar panels near the ground. 

“In Illinois, for example, a farm that may rent for $400 to $500 an acre a year for agriculture rents for $1,250 to $1,500 a year for solar, and the farmer cannot compete with that,” Pittman said. “To be honest, (when I’m wearing) my fiduciary obligation to my investor's hat, if somebody offers us $1,500 an acre, it's going to go to solar. But wearing my Paul the citizen hat, I'm not sure that's a great thing.”

Industrial farm growth led to a ‘hollowing out of the middle’

In most counties that lost producers, agriculture production actually increased as the remaining farms often grew larger or were converted to industrial operations. 

Wisconsin’s Douglas County, located in the state’s northwest corner, lost 31% of its producers from 2017 to 2022 but saw net cash farm incomes more than double and sales from agriculture products increase by 45% during that same period. 

Across the state, five counties saw a producer decline of at least 15% yet also saw agriculture production sales increase. 

“Many operators continued to exit, and this happened rapidly among Wisconsin dairy farms,” said Jeff Hadachek, an agriculture professor at the University of Wisconsin. “At the same time, the farms that remained were increasing in size.”

Hadachek said the increase in farm production means the local economy may still be growing even with a loss of producers. 

“I think economists would typically say that just looking at the number of farms is not the best way to consider economic health in a community,” Hadachek said. “Certainly, for the people who own land, the increase in value is a great thing … so there are two sides of the issue for sure.”

Like most types of farming, Wisconsin’s dairy industry has seen a move toward more industrial operations to improve efficiency, which can increase profits in a sector with tight margins for smaller dairy farmers. 

In 1997, the average Wisconsin dairy farm had 55.6 cows, while the 2022 average topped 203 per farm, according to research from the University of Wisconsin.

Some farmland investors see profit opportunities in the transition to larger farms and are predicting a continued shift toward industrial agriculture. 

“An aging farmer generation, fractional family ownership structure and technological advances requiring sizable capital investment will naturally transition farmland holdings from individuals to institutions,” stated a report from PGIM, the $10 billion property asset management company run by Prudential Financial that has increased its farmland holdings in recent years.

Hadachek said the growth in larger operations has led to a decrease in medium-sized farms, what he calls a “hollowing out of the middle.”

“The growth in the larger end reflects consolidation and the economies of scale and size associated with large farms, while the growth in the smaller end reflects growth in specialty foods, farms targeting the ‘local foods’ market, and hobby farming,” Hadachek said. 

But Pittman, the executive chairman of the investment firm Farmland Partners, said data on the decline in the number of farms across the country can be deceiving. 

From 2017 to 2022, America lost 141,733 farms, but 80% of those lost farms had less than $2,500 in annual sales. 

“You and I know those aren't really farms, I don't know why they're called farms,” Pittman said. “If you're talking about supporting a family or two families on a farm, you are talking about at least a million dollars in annual sales, which would give you about $50,000 in distributable household income to send your kids to school and pay for food and all that.”

USDA data shows the nation lost 10,537 farms with annual sales of $100,000 to $499,999, but farms making more than $500,000 grew by more than 26,000. 

Some states, nonprofits work to protect farmland from development

Construction sounds have become a constant echo in McCurtin County, Oklahoma, where cabins and resorts are being built in the pastures and forests between the Ouachita Mountains and Red River. Tourism growth, especially visitors from the Dallas metro, which is within a two-hour drive, has increased local farmland prices much faster than the state average. 

From 2017 to 2022, McCurtin County lost nearly one out of every five producers while the average value per acre soared from $1,901 to $2,601 as investors, second-home buyers and some private equity firms snatched up land to build vacation homes or sit on the land while its value grew.

“When someone’s waving that kind of money at grandpa’s farm, they let ’em have it,” said Brent Bolin, a poultry producer in McCurtin County, who is also a state agriculture commissioner.  

In a recent report titled “Farms Under Threat,” the American Farmland Trust found that between 2001 and 2016, more than 11 million acres of farmland was converted to urban and residential use, with Texas, California, Arizona, and Georgia topping the list. 

To stall the urbanization of farmland, the American Farmland Trust, a nonprofit that says it wants to expand the “conservation agriculture movement,” has facilitated the purchase of more than 78,000 acres to protect it from nonagricultural uses. 

Some states have taken similar measures, including Oregon, where counties must protect some farmland through specific zoning restrictions. 

Bolin said zoning restrictions might be worth considering, although he’s hesitant to suggest them. 

“It’s something that would be super controversial, and I don't know where I stand on it,” Bolin said. “I know there are some states that help protect farmland, but that is more regulation, and we don’t like that here in Oklahoma. But I don’t know what the answer is.” 

Even if farmland is protected from being converted into another use, young farmers still struggle to compete with cash buyers. While many of those cash buyers, including investment firms, rent the land to farmers, critics say that creates a system that lacks stability for farmers and ranchers, especially those looking to start a business for the first time. 

“The contract could be a three-year lease or a five-year lease, but that’s not much long-term security for a farmer,” said Polanco with the National Young Farmers Coalition. 

Bray, the Oklahoma farmer, said owning land was crucial for her to have the kind of control she wanted over her business. It also allowed her to make more environmentally focused decisions about land use. 

But when Bray was looking to buy land, competing with cash buyers was even more difficult because her own financial options took a long time to fulfill. 

“Not only did we have to finance but we were kind of forced into a commercial funding route instead of the state program route because the government programs take too long,” Bray said. 

The National Young Farmers Coalition has advocated for the Farm Service Agency to be made a loan-making institution with pre-approval and pre-qualification processes to give farmers needing financing a better chance at competing for land. 

“This would allow farmers to show they are eligible, especially if the seller wants an offer right away and has a cash offer from a corporation,” Polanco said. 

Even when Bray was able to purchase her current property, complications arose from the land’s previous owner, a cash buyer who made a quick purchase. 

“Moving in, it took us months and months and months to get in our property because of how it was handled before,” Bray said. “The title had never been transferred, so we had to wait for that to be transferred to the prior owner before it could be transferred to us. And there was official paper that they had run out of stock on, somebody forgot to order the official state paper for the licenses and titles and all of that, so that was another waiting game.”

During the delays, Bray’s Realtor warned her she might have to move on to another property.  

“He said, ‘Honey, if you don't get this, don't feel bad, we'll keep looking,’ ” Bray recalled. “But I said, ‘No, we will wait’ because … I had that feeling when we got here that this was the place. This was our dream, but you know, high interest rates, the prices of the properties and the margins as a farmer, those three things don’t go together, they just don’t.”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

As investors pay top-dollar for land, farmers are often priced out is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.