In the face of cancer diagnoses, farmers are finding ways forward with hope and consideration of future generations
Symptoms
Jon Bakehouse felt healthy. He had been farming full-time for nearly 30 years on his family’s farm near Hastings in southwest Iowa. The herd of cattle and gently rolling hills had kept him in good shape.
But one moment, in spring 2024, he was rolling up electric fencing when his hands and feet started to feel odd. Then his heart was racing. In a short time, he had his son take him to the emergency room.
So began months of medications, tests and heart procedures that continually left Jon in no better condition with frequent episodes of ventricular tachycardia, a sudden racing heart rate. Farming came to a standstill.
“I went from working 16 hours a day, running around, moving cattle and all that kind of stuff to not be able to do anything,” Jon says. “That was a huge blow.”
Diagnosis
The real issue? Stage four non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It was finally found in late summer, several months after Jon’s first symptoms appeared.
Jon is one of an estimated 175,000 Iowans who have either survived or are currently living with cancer in 2026, according to the Iowa Cancer Registry’s annual “Cancer in Iowa” report, published in March. Since 2023, Iowa has had the second-highest rate of new cancers in the United States, and it’s one of only three states with a rising cancer rate.
But why?
In March, two weeks after the Iowa Cancer Registry report came out, The Harkin Institute and Iowa Environmental Council released an 89-page report exploring the environmental risk factors implicated in Iowa’s high rates of cancer.
The report named exposure to pesticides; high levels of “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and nitrates in Iowa waterways; and radon as leading carcinogens in Iowa. These are in addition to factors like smoking, alcohol use and exposure to ultraviolet light.
With so many potential causes of cancer, it is impossible in many cases to identify an exact cause of any one cancer diagnosis. But the Iowa Cancer Registry report cites findings from the Agricultural Health Study – one of the world’s largest and longest-running ongoing studies of agriculture exposures and health – that associate non-Hodgkin lymphoma with at least seven types of pesticides used in Iowa agriculture.
The subsequent report from The Harkin Institute and IEC identified the three most common pesticides in Iowa as acetochlor, atrazine and glyphosate, with the latter two associated with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The Search for a Cause
Farmers across Iowa use pesticides for a host of helpful reasons – staving off crop disease, killing or deterring pests, fighting weeds and terminating cover crops. For many looking to improve soil health with no-till and cover crops, pesticides make it possible to still grow high-yielding cash crops.
Jon’s family has grown corn and soybeans for decades. Seeking soil health benefits, he and his father implemented no-till in the late 1990s and eventually added cover crops to the mix in the early 2010s, around the time that Jon learned about Practical Farmers of Iowa.
Cover crops brought even more benefits – water infiltration and nutrient fixation among them. But Jon noticed he had to use even more herbicide than before to effectively terminate the cover crops.
Having read the pesticide labels, he was concerned about the possible ramifications of using them but was careful to use personal protective equipment and follow the labelled instructions.
About five years ago, he started trialing a roller crimper to mechanically kill his cover crops instead of applying chemicals. “I thought, ‘Oh, cancer is something that other people will get. I’m fine because I’m taking precautions.’ But, wrong answer.”
Jon can’t say with confidence that his work with pesticides caused his cancer. But he, like many Iowans, has seen the recent reports of Iowa’s high cancer rates. He likens Iowa’s cancer diagnosis to his own. “It’s been there a long time, but suddenly it’s front and center in everybody’s mind. I think we’re in that period of panic and diagnosis, so to speak.
And I just hope we can take this opportunity to say, ‘What can I do right now that would help resolve the problem?’”
Questions of Health
Gayle and Jeff Olson hold similar concerns about their work and health. They raise corn, soybeans, rye, barley, alfalfa, cattle and cover crops extensively on their farm near Winfield in southeast Iowa.
Jeff’s father, Harold, died 12 years ago from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Harold was also a farmer and developed a sensitivity to organophosphates in chemically treated seed long before his lymphoma diagnosis. Consequently, Jeff would often fill the planter in his dad’s place. Despite making many changes to the farm, Jeff continues to use some chemicals for weed control and to terminate cover crops.
Jeff, like Jon, knows there are no clear answers that can pinpoint the exact cause of a cancer diagnosis. And there are other types of cancer – lung, prostate, breast, skin, to name a few – that are more prevalent in Iowa than lymphoma. But Jeff carries with him the fear of potential health problems related to his decades-long exposure to pesticides.
“I’m hoping I’m lucky with all the chemical exposure that I’ve had,” he says. “I bet in 20 or 30 years, we’ll be saying, ‘Why were we messing with that stuff?’”
Gayle voices additional concern about pesticides getting into public water supplies and private wells that are not tested. “We’re on rural water, but they don’t test for some of the pesticides as they do for nitrates,” she says. “There are a lot of other chemicals that could be in the water that never get tested for.”
Since they first started farming, Jeff and Gayle have taken many steps to improve health and safety on their farm. They make sure to always wash farm clothes separately from all other clothes. In the past two decades, they have transitioned to organic on fields they own that are nearest to their house, which are about 20% of their total acres.
The Olsons haven’t been able to cut out chemicals on the farm, but they limit chemical use where they can with the labor they have. They also focus on building soil health using extended rotations and cover crops and integrating livestock, working with neighbors to implement those practices as well.
Steps Forward
Two years on from his diagnosis, Jon is now well enough to continue farming, thanks to effective medical treatment – though his family made the difficult decision to sell their cattle earlier in his health crisis.
Last year, Jon roll-crimped cover crops on all his acres in his effort to further reduce chemical inputs. He contemplates the farm’s ongoing drift from its original state – from tallgrass prairie to diversified crop-livestock farm to just corn, soybeans and cover crops – and wonders what his land would be like as 750 acres of prairie.
Jon says it would be easy to give up on trying to do things differently. He already has cancer – why keep working to minimize the potential causes? The answer, he says, is in thinking beyond ourselves. “We’re thinking in isolation of one another, very separately. And I think that is a natural extension of a disconnection from the land.”
He likens his ongoing effort to minimize potential harms to a marathon relay race. “Somebody has handed us the baton, and we do the best we can to make sure we’re running at a reasonable pace and then handing the baton off to the next person or generation.”
Like Jeff and Gayle, Jon believes he must do what he can to make Iowa a better place for the future. Working with others, whether they are landlords, tenants, neighbors or fellow PFI members, creates a sturdier foundation for change to happen. Cancer – and not knowing the exact cause of it – is scary. So is the reality of Iowa’s high cancer rates.
But Jon says it’s vital we don’t let our fears get in the way of finding solutions. “Don’t get discouraged about the big picture,” he says, “because it’s easy to get paralyzed with that. Instead, let’s focus on connecting with the land, with our environment and with each other.”
Read Part 1 of our exploration of how farming intersects with environmental and human health in our Spring 2026 issue. The story, “Currents of Change,” looks at how farmers and landowners are working to support cleaner water.
Learn More
Read the Iowa Cancer Registry’s 2026 “Cancer in Iowa” report.
Read The Harkin Institute and Iowa Environmental Council report, “Environmental Risk Factors and Iowa’s Cancer Crisis.”
