'Cropaganda' driving eminent domain, corporate greenwashing

Most of the corn grown in the US is fed to domestic livestock but a third of it will be processed for ethanol this year and subsidies of up to $700 an acre are the incentives to plant even more next year. 20 of Iowa's 99 counties are devoted exclusively to food that is ultimately burned for automobile fuel.

In Iowa voluntary buffer strips and other conservation practices have simply failed desertifying parts of the state and causing the Raccoon River to be named one of the most endangered waterways in the United Snakes so Summit Carbon Solutions wants to dig a $4.5 billion pipeline that would rip up over two thousand miles of unceded tribal lands where thousands of Indigenous Americans are buried. According to Iowa State University some land impacted by pipelines never recovers from the disturbance. 

But that’s exactly what the co-hosts of the Iowa-based podcast, "We All Want Clean Water," offered in the first episode of their second season. According to the three, cropaganda marries old fashioned farm mythmaking to modern farm advocacy in Big Ag’s effort to maintain the status quo. [A no-ethanol future doesn’t mean a no-profit future: Alan Guebert]

Ethanol has only two thirds the energy density of gasoline or diesel and less than half of what natural gas contains but has an immensely larger carbon footprint. Few farm with gasoline powered equipment and ethanol is being grown with diesel fuel so how is that either conservative or sustainable? 

At post time Summit had yet to file for permits in North Dakota.

Among those fired up in South Dakota is Dennis Wolf, who farms in McPherson County. He has been put off by what he says are "bullying tactics" by Summit. In letters to South Dakota landowners dated June 4, 2022, Summit references state law 21-35-31, which gives entities seeking a pipeline permit access to property to survey it, even if the property owners have refused access. But in McPherson County in northern South Dakota, Sheriff Dave Ackerman said his office has been called about a half-a-dozen times by landowners wanting Summit survey crews to leave. [Landowners facing lawsuits over surveyor access for Summit Carbon pipeline in North Dakota, South Dakota]

Industrial agriculture is ecocide and for those of us who love the Earth shucks like Summit’s are subsidized corporate greenwashing but ironically many Republicans actually benefitting from reduced greenhouse emissions decry them as caving to the Green New Deal.