Study Uncovers the Impact of Clean Water Act Regulations on Water Quality Nearby Large Hog Farms in Iowa

Sep 09, 2025

A new study published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics reveals that 2003 Clean Water Act regulations, while effective for their intended targets, ultimately had little to no impact on water quality in Iowa due to the shift it caused in the structure of the state’s hog industry.

The research, conducted by Chen-Ti Chen and Gabriel E. Lade of The Ohio State University, John M. Crespi of Iowa State University, and David A. Keiser of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, investigated the effects of federal regulations on water quality downstream of large hog animal feeding operations (AFOs) in Iowa. Iowa is the nation's largest hog-producing state, raising about a third of all U.S. hogs. The study linked historical regulatory records of AFOs to nearby, downstream water pollution monitors from 2000 to 2012 to determine the regulations' impact.

"When these updates to the Clean Water Act were passed, the EPA estimated that the regulations would lead to valuable improvements in downstream water quality that would justify the permitting and construction costs they impose on animal producers," said Dr. Gabriel Lade, Associate Professor and C. William Swank Chair in Rural-Urban Policy. "Our study set out to see if those benefits were realized."

Source : osu.edu

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators