Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment

Steingraber shares a personal story about butchering hogs on her farm when she was a young girl. She talks about the rapid decrease in the number of farms, specifically in the Illinois area where she grew up, and how people don’t really know where their food comes from. She notes a stark separation between raising cattle and growing crops, but neither type of farming is economically sound. One thing that hasn’t changed since Silent Spring is agriculture’s chemical dependency.

After World War II, chemicals in agriculture decreased the need for labor. Farms got bigger because more crops had to be grown to make up for diminishing profits. The demand to focus on one type of crop, and more of it, increased the need for pesticides. Herbicides hinder crop rotation because certain chemical-sensitive plants can no longer be planted in certain areas. Rotation was used to keep pests down, but the pests increased with the introduction of herbicides.

Illinois corn and soybean production is the raw material for meat, eggs, and dairy because most crops are raised to feed livestock. Unlike times past, much of the crop is sent miles away to be fed to animals nowhere near the farm. Steingraber notes how much of the crop on her grandfather’s farm was used there—for example, corn was used as food for humans and animals, and corn cobs were used for heating.