Chris Jones, the Democratic Candidate for Iowa’s Secretary of Agriculture, discussed issues in a campaign at rural Westfield on Saturday.
During the event Jones focused on water quality, pesticide regulations, and cancer rates.
Jones said he would address some of these issues by incentivizing farmers to diversify their crops, enforce current regulations regarding pesticides, and letting counties have authority over livestock numbers.
“We need to devise an agricultural production system that's not going to produce pollution in the first place, our strategies for this now have been trying to shore up the existing system without really solving the problem,” said Jones.
One issue that kept being brought up during the conversation is how younger generations of Iowans are increasingly leaving the state. According to the Common Sense institute Iowa, the state saw a net loss of 3,445 college educated adults between the ages of 25 and 29 in a year.
Jones is running against Republican Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig.
