9. Donnelle Eller. Iowa could support 45,700 livestock confinements, but should it? Des Moines Register, March 2018. www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/ Iowa - Big-Ag’s Sacrifice Zone: agriculture/2018/03/08/iowa-can-support-47-500-cafos-but- should/371440002/ Accessed June 10, 2018 An Indigenous Perspective 10. Brian Bienkowski. My Number One Concern is Water”: As Hog Farms Grow in Size A Land Decolonizaon Project Zine Series by Seeding Sovereignty and Number, so do Iowa Water Problems. Environmental Health News, November 2017. www.ehn.org/water-polluon-hog-farming-2504466831.html Accessed June 10, 2018 11. Carolyn Raffensperger. Personal Correspondence. Summer 2017 12. Pescide. How Products are Made. www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Pescide.html#ixzz5RgVgFnGK Accessed September 21, 2018 13. Lance Foster. Personal Correspondence. Summer 2018 . 14. John Doershuk. Protecng Something Sacred. Iowa Natural Heritage Foundaon, March 2018. www.inhf.org/blog/blog/protecng-something-sacred/ Accessed June 10, 2018

We are a multi-generational led model by and for Indigenous and Non- Indigenous womxn based on mentoring relationships and principles of unity, solidarity, justice, sharing and respect.

A Seeding Sovereignty Publicaon, 2018 Created by Chrisne Nobiss Art by Jackie Fawn Seedingsovereignty.org those tribes don’t live here anymore, but sll feel that this is their historical and During this me of climate crisis, it is imperave that we transform the colonized that the features found here are an acve part of their culture today.”14 These naons mind of seler descendant society by pushing Indigenous ideologies onto the world have been involved in more than just archeological protecon--many have helped stage. We need to convey the profound and sustainable perspecves of Indigenous throughout the years to protect the integrity of Iowa's land and in the fight for social

communies, cultures and relaonships to the earth by giving Indigenous people jusce.

the opportunity to invesgate, speak, write, photograph, and so much more. In In Iowa, there are few but mighty First Naon programs, Indigenous organizaons, and parcular, we need to encourage Indigenous women on to the world stage and individuals that are doing environmental and social jusce work. For instance, the empower them to convey the sacred feminine that has been violently oppressed. Meskwaki Naon recently started Red Earth Gardens, an organic CSA dedicated to growing the food of their Meskwaki ancestors (i.e., heirloom seeds, etc.) to beer the health of Seeding Sovereignty's Land Decolonizaon Project is our contribuon to this important their people. There are also individuals like Frank LaMere, Winnebago, who is trying to get process and we have chosen the geographical area of Iowa as our current focus because no other landscape in the country has been biologically altered to the extent that this state Indian Health Services in Iowa (because there is none) in order to heal our people. He is has. Iowa is Big-Ag’s sacrifice zone. According to the Iowa Prairie Network, Iowa used to be oen heard saying that we cannot heal our people if we cannot heal ourselves. There is as biologically diverse as some rainforests in South America but now its diversity is also the Nave American Coalion of the Quad Cies, the UIOWA Nave American Student comparable to that of a desert. It is almost an arficial environment where food is grown in Associaon, Sage Sisters of Solidarity, the UIOWA Nave Spaces Project and Indigenous soil that needs constant applicaon of ferlizers and other nutrients due to monocropping Iowa--all of which are doing work in a state that is only host to about 14,000 Nave and heavy crop rotaon schedules and that is currently considered the number one American people. Seeding Sovereignty’s Land Decolonizaon Project wants to bring these contributor to the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico. With increased clear-cung, groups and the First Naons with es to Iowa together to take a more cohesive stand monocropping of shallow root plants, CAFOs, urban sprawl, golf courses (Iowa hosts more against environmental degradaon in Iowa. Indigenous people have been resisng the golf courses, per capita than any other state), and general development, runoff is greatly assault to our land for a very long me but we need to start standing up for the land increasing into Iowa waterways. To date, Iowa has lost an incredible amount of its topsoil from excessive runoff. The Environmental Working Group has reported that, annually, Iowa outside of "Indian country" and challenge the status quo in places where Indigenous voices loses twice the amount of topsoil than the federal government's esmate. Contained are rarely heard. Seeding Sovereignty has also paired with allies such as Bold Iowa, Iowa within that run-off is animal waste, herbicides, pescides, ferlizers, and commercial by- CCI, 100 Grannies, The Naonal Family Farm Coalion, Midwest Telegraph, The Poor products, which all flows down river. Climate change is also a contribung factor to soil People's Campaign, The Women’s March, etc., in order to raise awareness on Indigenous erosion as there is an increase in extreme rainfall events and severe flooding. issues in Iowa and the world. The desired impact is to provide a voice to a populaon Today, Iowa competes for the very boom in state parks and public lands. We are known segment of this society that desperately needs to be heard at this point in me.

as the most biologically altered state in North America. Roughly 98% of Iowa has been Bibliography altered for agricultural use, cies, and roads...Iowa has no old-growth forests le. We 1. Mark Edwards. Trails Funding Important to Iowa's Parks. Iowa Chapter Sierra Club, July have less than one-tenth of one percent of the prairies which covered our state and 2017. www.sierraclub.org/iowa/july-2017-newsleer Accessed June 10, 2018 produced our rich soils. Only 10% of Iowa’s remaining prairies and forests lie within the 2. The Lynchpin of Industrial Ag. Pescide Acon Network. www.panna.org/pescides-big- public domain and its limited protecon…Less than two-tenths of one percent of Iowa’s picture/lynchpin-industrial-ag Accessed September 20, 2018 land is designated and protected as state parks. Almost all parks can be walked across in 3. Sarah Carter. Lost Harvest: Prairie Farmers and Government Policy. an hour and you are rarely more than a mile from a road...We connue to make bad Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990. Page 18.

choices as farmers converted roughly the size of our state parks or around 50,000 acres 4. Sarah Carter. Ibid. of grassland, scrubland and wetlands from 2008 to 2011 to farmland. Urban sprawl has 5. Christopher Doering. Farmers Turn to GMO-Free Crops to Boost Income. Des Moines increased 50,000 acres in the last ten years. We have now covered 23.6 million acres, Register, March 2018. www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/ 1 about two-thirds of the state in just two species – corn and soybeans. (See Map) agriculture/2015/04/18/non-gmo-farming/25951693/ Accessed September 24, 2018 6. Georgina Agusn. Factory Farms Put Climate at Risk, Experts Say in Urging Health Map of land use in Iowa depicng the Officials to Speak Out. Inside Climate News. www.google.com/amp/s/ insideclimatenews.org/news/22052017/factory-farms-cafos-threaten-climate-change- descripon given on page 1 by Mark world-heath-organizaon%3famp Accessed September 21, 2018 Edwards, rered Iowa DNR Trails 7. Jonathan Foley. It’s Time to Rethink America’s Corn System. Scienfic American, March Coordinator and environmental 2013. www.scienficamerican.com/arcle/me-to-rethink-corn Accessed September 25, acvist. (Courtesy of The Iowa DNR 2018 via Mark Edwards) 8. Carol Hunter. Which Iowa Leader has Courage to take on Big Pork? Des Moines Register, March 2018. www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/2018/03/22/cafo-iowa -reynolds-hogs-big-pork/448567002/ Accessed June 10, 2018 1 6 eminent domain and, right now, the easement where the pipeline sits is largely a no-grow Historically, Iowa is an area where Indigenous genocide and relocaon was a severe and zone. Currently, there is a court case in Iowa where nine landowners and the Sierra Club vast process due to the desire for the ferle ground which lies between the Missouri and have sued the IUB over the illicit use of eminent domain and lack of an environmental Mississippi Rivers. With the influx of seler vigilantes and colonial milias, Iowa was impact survey. Oral arguments were heard on September 12, 2018, and an answer will be completely taken and over me the result of their colonial-capitalist farming pracces has delivered by the Iowa Supreme Court in the next few weeks to months. made the land almost unrecognizable. It is now a highly mono-cropped, GMO state where

According to Carolyn Raffensperger, Lawyer for the Science and Environmental Health Big-Ag and CAFOs rule the land. Where there used to be tallgrass prairie, oak savanna, Network, “The two cases are asking for different things. The landowners are asking to have wetlands and woodlands there are now rows and rows of genecally modified corn and soy interspersed with CAFO houses, animal waste lagoons, and urban centers. the decision about eminent domain reversed but are not challenging the IUB permit directly. The Sierra Club is challenging DAPL’s permit.”11 Thus, in Iowa, the fight is far from Big-Agriculture—Corporate The of Already Stolen Land over and many are determined to protect the environment from the catastrophe of an oil What is Big-Ag? The Pescide Acon Network states that “industrial agriculture treats the spill from a pipeline as large as DAPL, which transports almost 500,000 barrels a day. farm as a factory, with "inputs" (pescides, ferlizers) and "outputs" (crops). The end- Ironically, the carcinogenic compounds that would be released by an oil spill are already objecve is to increase yields while controlling costs — usually by exploing economies of regularly applied to many crops in Iowa through the use of pescides and herbicides. As of scale (i.e. "monocropping"), and by replacing solar energy and manual labor with machines today, some 900 acve chemical pescides are used to manufacture 40,000 commercial and petro-chemical inputs.”2 Farming in this capacity is a result of colonial-capitalist preparaons. Acve ingredients were once dislled from natural substances; now they are thinking which has roots in Chrisanity and the belief that god gave man dominion over the largely synthesized in a laboratory. Almost all are hydrocarbons derived from earth. This dogma influenced the doctrine of discovery, which is a concept that gave petroleum...Liquid pescides have tradionally used kerosene or some other petroleum Chrisan explorers the right to lay claim to land that they “discovered”. In America, the 12 disllate as a carrier, though water has recently begun to replace kerosene.” doctrine of discovery was later expressed as manifest desny, a similar ideology that drove

The abuse of eminent domain cannot be discussed without recognizing the genocide of 19th-century U.S. territorial expansion. Manifest desny was a jusficaon to annihilate Indigenous people and the colonizaon of their land. It must always be noted that the land and “civilize” the Indian in order to lay claim to their land. It recognized the fundamental that was taken by DAPL in Iowa rests upon a strafied history of the people that came desire for land expansion through ethnic cleansing and slavery. Thus, this country was before. As Lance Foster, Tribal Historic Preservaon Officer of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and founded at the point of a gun by the acons of seler vigilantes and colonial milias with a Nebraska, has wrien, “Tribes with deep history in Iowa are the Iowa (Ioway), Otoe, maniacal lust for Indian killing and the control of Black people all for the sake of free real Omaha, Ponca, Hochunk (also known as Winnebago), Meskwaki, Sauk (the previous two estate and cheap labor. In the process, they enforced an individualisc, capitalisc agrarian also called the Sac and Fox), Dakota, Yankton (the previous two also known as ) and culture across the connent. Agriculture was even considered the soluon to the Indian Illini. The Potawatomi also seled in Iowa for a me during . The only tribe problem, as Sarah Carter, in her book Lost Harvest writes, to now remain as a naon in Iowa is the Meskwaki with a selement near Tama. The Agriculture was seen as the soluon to the at-best peculiar and at worst deplorable 13 Omaha and Hochunk sll own lands here.” For Indigenous people, the fact that there characteriscs and idiosyncrasies which the Indians tenaciously and perversely was a lack of proper archeological surveys was and is sll distressing. cherished. The Indian had to be taught to make his living from the soil. No other

occupaon could so assuredly dispossess the Indian of his nomadic habits and the Cizens of the Ihanktowan (Yankton) First Naon came to Iowa to intervene in Lyon county uncertaines of the chase, and fix upon him the values of a permanent abode and the when a sacred site was discovered. Besides this, there was no further work done to security of a margin of surplus. Agriculture would teach an appreciaon of private preserve sacred sites. According to State Archaeologist, John Doershuk, the vast majority of property and impart a will to own and master nature...Farming a piece of land would land in Iowa is privately owned. This means, that there is lile that the Army Corp of Engineers or the Nave American Graves and Reparaons Act (NAGPRA) can do here. This promote an independent spirit and foster compeon, qualies which would erode the 3 tribal unit. Agriculture would nurture habits of industry and diligence. is disappoinng because Iowa was where the idea for NAGPRA was born through the work of Maria Pearson, Ihanktowan, who is considered the founding Mother of this act. Iowa has Though the Indigenous populaon of Turtle Island resisted policies that aacked their its own laws concerning the protecon of Nave American sacred sites, however, in the cultural tradions, many naons adapted to the enforced agrarian lifestyle and even case of DAPL, these important laws were only loosely applied and, ll this day, many who excelled at it. However, austere government policy and seler racism soon ruined their fought to protect sacred sites during construcon of the pipeline have no idea what was farming accomplishments and the fault was put on their inability to overcome their innate, destroyed. “savage” insncts. However, if seler descendants paid any aenon to Indigenous Seeding Sovereignty's Iowa Land Decolonizaon Project wisdom on this maer we might not be facing climate change and environmental collapse.

Environmental ignorance and financial corrupon run deep in the Iowa government and it’s A quote by Smoholla, Nimiipuu, and founder of the Dreamer Religion, that was oen used up to the local farmers, environmentalists, concerned cizens and invested sovereign First to substanate the racist noon that Indians could not farm can also be used today in a Naons to stop to it. As John Doershuk, State Archeologist has stated, “There are twenty- different context concerning the success of no-ll farming; a method used by small, six tribes we currently work with that have an interest in and connecon to Iowa. Many of organic, environmentally conscious farmers. Smoholla said, 5 2 My young men shall never work. Men who work cannot dream, and wisdom comes to us It is believed that people living in the vicinity of these CAFOs are suscepble to elevated in dreams. You asked me to plow the ground. Shall I take a knife and tear my mother's rates of childhood asthma and other diseases like MRSA. And though it is said that all of the breast? Then when I die she will take me to her bosom to rest. You ask me to dig for animal waste in Iowa can be used as ferlizer, the reality is that much of it sits in lagoons stone. Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? Then when I die I cannot enter her body to because over-applicaon can inundate soil with fecal coliform, nitrogen, phosphates, and be born again. You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it and be rich like white heavy metals--all of which is leaching into Iowa waterways This is one of the main reasons men. But how dare I cut off my mother’s hair? 4 why over 750 waterways are impaired in this state and do not meet the Clean Water Act Not only was Smoholla speaking about the damage that would occur through the use of standards. Every year the state beach closures increase due to high levels of anbioc- the plow but he verbalized the damage that would take place to the land and the people by resistant bacteria and microcysn — a toxin produced by some forms of blue-green algae colonial-capitalist farming methods. According to The World Bank, in most regions of the which feeds off of nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen and thrives in high temperatures. world, over seventy percent of freshwater is used for agriculture and in the US the EPA Furthermore, according to the Iowa DNR Fish Kill database, “over the past decade esmates that the same industry is responsible for seventy-five percent of water-quality 4,464,257 fish have been killed by animal waste”. 10 problems in our lakes, rivers, and streams. Also, over 260 million acres of forest has been cleared to make room for mostly GMO mono-cropped fields. As reported in the Des Not only is hog farming having a detrimental impact on the land, air, and water systems of Moines Register, “last year [2013], an esmated 97 percent of soybeans and 95 percent of Iowa, but historically this animal is responsible for a lot of the colonized death and corn grown in Iowa were from biotech seeds, figures that were both higher than the destrucon that occurred in the Americas. Hogs are not nave to this land. They were naonal average.”5 However, since that report there has been a slow increase in non-GMO brought in, inially, by conquistadors who were not concerned with the destrucon of local farming in Iowa. Not only is the land and water affected by Big-Ag’s runoff, but CAFOs are crops and the influx of disease the animals brought. Some scholars believe that hogs are highly responsible for increased air polluon because, according to the EPA, animal waste responsible for the inial massive populaon reducon in Mexico where they quickly contributes 50% to 85% of US ammonia emissions. Furthermore, according to the World spread disease. The French, who came aer, have recorded their reacon to the aermath Health Organizaon (WHO), “The livestock industry's contribuon to greenhouse gases of this genocide. However, Mexico was not the only part of the Americas hit by the come from direct sources, including methane emied from the animals belching and their diseases that hogs brought with them. All of the Americas was eventually affected by the manure, but also from indirect sources, including land conversion and deforestaon linked influx of these diseases. to growing feed.”6 Iowa is a prime example of direct source emissions, as it is host to 23 million hogs, plus almost half of it’s corn producon is used as the main energy ingredient Over me, some tribes were forced into swine herding. They were strongarmed out of in livestock feed while the other half of all corn produced ends up as ethanol “In short, the their Indigenous lifestyles into becoming keepers of their colonizers' livestock. Franciscan corn crop is highly producve, but the corn system is aligned to feed cars and animals monks have records detailing their approval of raising swine and its many benefits. And, instead of feeding people.”7 yes, some tribes did benefit from raising these animals. However, hogs were either liked or disliked by various tribes. Some embraced them and enjoyed the taste of the meat while For most First Naons, wealth was seen as an ability to give gis and provide for the others thought they were dirty and/or devastated by the destrucon of their crops and people. It was a completely different perspecve that offended selers to the point that, in indigenous way of life. Canada, the government banned potlatch ceremonies (giveaways) and the people were forced to carry out their ceremonies underground. This is an important part of North These animals are sll affecng our health in many ways. Currently, Nave Americans have American Indigenous culture to know because it explains how an Indigenous-led the highest diabetes rate in the country. The rise in this disease is a direct correlaon to the regenerave economy can help us curb the onslaught of climate change and end social rise in obesity. And this stasc holds true for Americans as a whole; especially as injusce caused by colonial-capitalism. This ideology can help us beer understand how to populaons, across the board, move into a state of obesity. Americans have been forced interact with the land and fight corporate conglomerates that are destroying the earth on into a high meat, sugar, fat and processed food diet due to lack of access to healthier which they carry out their unhealthy and inhumane commercial farming pracces. foods. Many inner-city areas, rural towns, and reservaons are basically food deserts and

Concentrated Animal Feed Operaons (CAFOs) - Hogs Then and Now because pork is one of America’s largest commercial products, it is oen easily accessible

Hidden from big cies, but an immediate threat to rural communies, is over 15,000 and inexpensive. Not only are CAFOs terrible for the surrounding environment and our concentrated animal feed operaons (CAFOs) and producers are rapidly buying more land diets, but the history of this animal on Turtle Island is sad and disturbing. It is me to tell due to a surge in commercial demand for pork (i.e., China and Mexico). Shockingly, an Iowa this story to Iowa legislators, like Governor Kim Reynolds, who support the dangerous Department of Natural Resources study stated that “based on the state's ferlizer needs, increase of CAFOs. that Iowa could support 45,700 concentrated animal feeding operaons—four mes as 8 Pipelines and Abuse of Eminent Domain on Stolen Land many as exist now.” There are already 23 million hogs mostly confined to CAFOs, living horrifying lives, that create more than 10 billion gallons of “ferlizer” a year which sits in Iowa state legislators have shown lile to no interest in the long-term quality of our water massive lagoons. Ironically, “Few places are beer suited for pork producon: Iowa, the and health as, under our prior Governor, Terry Branstad, the construcon of the Dakota naon's top corn producer, has ample feed, 30 million acres of crops that can use the Access Pipeline was given a green light even with massive protest from Iowans who ferlizer that CAFOs create, and a growing number of meatpacking plants to process the pointed out that the Iowa Ulies Board (IUB) abused eminent domain and mismanaged animals.” 9 the permit they authorized for the pipeline. Many farmers were affected by this abuse of 3 4