Agricultural Policy Review
A Research Publication of the Center for Agricultural & Rural Development
Fall 2026
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This article traces how glyphosate’s role in Iowa corn and soybean production has evolved, and then examines the litigation landscape over glyphosate’s carcinogenicity status that led to the recent US Supreme Court decision on Monsanto v. Durnell.
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Hay and small grain production are in long-run secular decline in Iowa and throughout the United States, being replaced by corn and soybean acres. Summed corn and soybean share of total country-wide cropland has expanded from 24.8% in 1949 to 54.0% in 2024.
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When a new business opens in a small Iowa town, it rarely makes headlines, but the sum of those decisions shapes the state’s economy and the vitality of its rural communities. Recent Iowa State graduates are an important source of new businesses, bringing fresh skills and training into the economy as founders, employers, and innovators.
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Wind energy is a dominant source of Iowa’s power generation. In 2024, wind energy generated 44.3 million mega-watt hours (MWh), or 62.8% of the state’s net electricity generation, which is the second-largest wind output after Texas and the highest wind share among US states (EIA 2025).
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Agriculture increasingly faces challenges that no single farmer can solve alone. Insect pests, plant diseases, and herbicide-resistant weeds often move across farm boundaries, so one producer’s actions (or lack thereof) affect neighboring farms.
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The Center for Agricultural and Rural Development has reintroduced the Long-Term Agricultural Outlook, which provides long-term projections based on macroeconomic drivers for the global food and agricultural sector through 2050. This horizon captures trends for agricultural systems and the environment and enables analysis of gradual changes shaped by economic drivers such as population growth, rising incomes, and evolving market relationships.
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Shrinkflation is the practice of reducing a product’s package size without implementing a proportional reduction in its retail price, effectively raising the unit price of the good; however, consumers unaware of the change in units might think they are paying less.
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US agriculture depends on a large hired workforce. In 2024, agriculture and agricultural support industries accounted for about 1.18 million wage and salary jobs, in addition to farm operators and family labor not fully captured in those figures (USDA ERS 2025). Some of this labor demand is met by workers who come to the United States from abroad, particularly for seasonal agricultural work.