Welcome to Canary in a Cornfield, a podcast from the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement, where we explore how the policies that shape our food and farming systems impact our health, our communities, and our future. As most of our listeners probably know, the Harkin Institute was founded upon the retirement of long-time public servant and Iowa legend Tom Harkin in order to continue doing high-quality work on the policy issues that were important to him. My guest for today's program is Emma Newton, the director of organizing with the Food, Agriculture, and Rural Economy's program at the State Innovation Exchange, sometimes abbreviated as SIX or six. Emma has been closely tracking efforts around the country, focused on stopping state-based attempts at creating immunity for companies that manufacture pesticides for our any claims from farmers or residents that they are being harmed by exposures to those pesticides. And she has a really interesting theory of change and a lot of insights about what has been effective in that campaign. So with that, we're going to jump in and talk to Emma Newton. I'm very happy today to be joined by Emma Newton from the State Innovation Exchange. Thank you so much for joining me today, Emma. Yeah, thank you so much Adam, I'm really glad to be here. Yeah, and you're doing a lot of work that is highly relevant for Iowa, but also relevant for things happening in the country. There's a lot of moving parts. I'm glad that you'll be here to help explain things for me, but maybe first of all, you could say a little bit about what the state innovation exchange is and your role there. So I'm the director of organizing with the Food, Agriculture, and Rural Economy's program here at the State Innovation Exchange or six. And we are a national organization that is a resource and strategy center for state legislators that are working on policies, rooted in progressive values on a wide range of intersecting issues. So that's including food, ag, rural economic justice, gender justice, reproductive health, democracy, tribal sovereignty, all sorts of things. We work in all 50 states and we are nonpartisan. And we mostly do C3 work, we also have a 501 C4 called six action. And we see ourselves as the nation's largest people centered home for state legislators. And we've become over the past decade, this trusted community that the goal is to support state legislators and policymakers as whole people who need safety, connection, inspiration to do their work and to best represent communities in these really challenging times. So our theory of change is actually built on co-governance and building co-governance. And this looks like we support state legislators and connecting with our communities that are most impacted by policy decisions. And we support them in developing those policies alongside the communities together so that they actually are effective and durable solutions to what people mean. More specifically in our program in the Food, Ag, and Rural Economy's program, we organize state legislators through a vehicle called the cohort for rural opportunity and prosperity or the crop. And this is the only crop state cohort of state legislators in the country that are dedicated to working on progressive, ag, rural, environmental and food policy. And I remember from 20 years ago hearing a lot about this group called Alec, the American Legislative Exchange Committee. And that was a group that would still do, basically just take corporations, ideas and write it into law and hand it off to legislators, astro-turfing legislation that was actually just written by industry. And what I really like about six is this progressive vision that is different in all the important ways from that, like as you explained where it's not focused on just doing corporate bidding. And as you said, working with legislators and people focused. So does that seem like a fair comparison to you? I mean, we have definitely heard Alec of the Left before when describing six. And the way we approach that comparison is legislators do need policies. They need example policies, they need the language that's ultimately what they're working on in the state house they're working on. But nesting language that ultimately leads to policies and laws and governance systems. Alec is, this is cookie cutter bills that are literally drafted by corporations. And then legislators are essentially handed those bills. And sometimes they don't even bother to change the name of the state. You'll be in a state and it'll have a different state name on the bill. And you're like, oh, that's an Alec bill because they didn't even bother to change it. And so we really see our role not only in supporting state legislators and getting example policies that are progressive and rooted in progressive values and are healthy for the communities, but we also focus on organizing and strategizing with state legislators to build a movement of durable power that's actually made and composed of people of the people that live in the states and in their communities and neighborhoods. And they don't often get a say in the policy making process or don't have their voices represented in the policy making process because it's dominated by corporate entities. And that is especially true for farmers and rural community members, families that really remember all places, ranchers, people that work in our food and act system, they are really left out of the policy making conversation. So a lot of our work is focused on, yes, providing policy, but really how do we amplify? How do we uplift? How do we bring the folks that are most impacted into the conversation of governance and really create a true democracy? And it seems like the time we're living in now state based policy is especially critical. So do you have any thoughts on the moment that we're in politically and why it's important to have this focus on individual states? Yeah, gosh, it is such a challenging moment. It's really hard on so many different levels and for so many issues and it feels like just one crisis after another. I think for a long time, the food and ag movement has seen things like the Farm Bill or National Policy as the way forward in creating a system that supports independent farmers and ranchers, health, healthy communities, gets people food access. And in many ways, there's very critical national policy that does happen in the Farm Bill and associated bills at the national level. But I think what we're finding in the last couple of years and especially with the second Trump administration is the chaos of the federal level, the severe funding cuts that have come down, the attacks on DEI and the attacks on rural services, schools, SNAP, elimination of conservation programs that farmers rely on. It's not feasible to feel like there is going to be solutions that come at the federal level in the time that we need them to in the time farmers and ranchers and rural communities need them to. And so what's happening is we're really seeing that state legislators are being tasked with filling these multi-billion-dollar funding gaps or filling the gaps left by the dismantling of critical programs. And at the state level, that means that there's not only this challenge, really hard, these are states that maybe don't operate with a ton of funds to begin with, maybe we're already in a budget deficit. But there's also this opportunity because state legislators are closer to the people that actually use these programs that experience these programs. And so there's this opportunity for policymakers to be more effectively equipped with the knowledge, with the solutions, the community-generated solutions to actually fill these gaps, create programs that are sustainable, create programs that are durable that actually work for the people in a way that I just don't think is feasible at the federal level in this moment. The other thing that I want to point out is right now there's a lot of really bad bills being tried at the state level. In addition to the national level, some really nasty bills that are being pushed by corporate entities, some of them Alex, some of them part of the corporate agricultural industry at the state level. And state legislators are really having to do a lot of crisis management, defensive and whack-a-mall work. And this is really critical. We want to preserve as many programs as possible. We want to maintain as much of the safety net as we possibly can in this moment in time when people are suffering and financially challenged, health challenged, all the things. But we also need to continue to keep the sort of a North Star vision of what our food and agriculture system can be. And so while we're fighting to defend these programs that are critical, we also need to recognize that we still need to maintain a vision of what our food and ag system could be in the future and continue working towards that together alongside our policymakers and regardless of what's happening at the federal level and the chaos that's happening there. This is so interesting. But I did want to shift it to be more specific about agriculture and you already alluded to it, but pesticide immunity seems like industries are doing a full-court press at the state level, Trump's executive order, at the courts in the Farm Bill. There's just so much energy being expended on this idea of pesticide immunity. So would you say a little bit more about what these pesticide immunity push is about and why it's such a big deal for those companies? Okay, so this is my gandler weeds here firm up there with me. So yeah, as you mentioned, this is a full-court press happening here. This is a national strategy. This is a state strategy. This is a local strategy being pushed.
by these multinational chemical companies, Baeers, and Gentah, Kim China. So this is the third year in a row that these corporate-backed pesticide immunity bills, they're often known as Baeer bills, failure to warn, cancer gag act are being introduced in state houses across the country. And these proposals essentially would shield pesticide manufacturers, chemical manufacturers, from liability for the harms caused by their products. And this undermines accountability, this puts farm workers, farmers, rural communities at risk, in numerous ways. More specifically, these bills were designed to shield Baeer and Singenta, but primarily Baeer, from liability for harms caused by its flagship product Roundup. But even though it's primarily being pushed by Baeer and it started there, if these bills pass and if the chemical communities are successful, this has implications for approximately 57,000 other chemicals that are used regularly in our agricultural systems. So it's not just about Roundup, it's not just about glyphosate, this is about thousands of chemicals that are used regularly in our food system. So it's really concerning. These are actually really unpopular bills. And this is especially true when people fully understand them, there's a deep bipartisan opposition to them. And yet, the agrochemical companies and their allies are continuing to aggressively push these bills forward in states like Iowa. Iowa and other large agricultural states often have this image of being industry friendly. Thanks to many years of state policy that has been friendly to corporate agro business. And this is where they're targeting first. Iowa's had now three years of this bill being introduced and they're targeting states that are similar in many ways to Iowa because they think they're going to be successful there. Right now, bear bills has the side immunity have been introduced in 10 states so far this year. So we have Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma, North Carolina, where it's actually been included in the state farm bill. North Carolina has a state farm bill and that language was included in there. As well as Idaho, Wyoming and Louisiana. 10 states, so a lot, we think they're going to target more sessions, not quite over. It is a short year, but some states are just getting started. But thanks to a lot of grassroots organizing, Florida's bear bills dead. Louisiana's was withdrawn a day after being filed. And in a bunch of other states, it doesn't seem to be moving. There's still a few states where it seems to be moving and there might be some momentum. But a lot of them are not in, they're not winning in the ways that I think they expected to win, which is really good news for us. In 2025, unfortunately, I do want to mention that the bear bill was introduced in Georgia in North Dakota and it did pass. And that was in large part to how quickly it was shoved through. And this was very challenging then for advocates to mount a really effective defense. So really what we're seeing is that these bills are successful when groups cannot push back and policymakers cannot push back because it's moving too quickly. But when they are able to push back like in Iowa, as we've seen, there's a lot of success in keeping these bills at bay because they're so deeply unpopular with bipartisan opposition to these bills. And one thing I just wanted to add is this question that I have in my mind is if corporate agribusiness industry is so powerful in these state legislators, why have these state bills not as been successful as one would have seen like in place like Iowa? And like I mentioned, unpopular piece, but I also think that a lot of people would agree that corporations shouldn't get to operate with impunity. So states like Iowa can offer us some insight into this because you all did a lot of work at the grassroots level and at the state legislator level to put front and center the stories of people being impacted by Iowa's cancer crisis, by glyphosate, by these chemicals. And the folks that in these bills were to pass would not have the ability to have recourse for the harms were caused to them and their families. And I think the fact that these stories were front and centered in the conversation around these bills undermined a lot of the corporate narrative about how these bills were necessary for farmers because it was farmers coming forward. Is rural community members coming forward and they're like, I have been harmed. My families have been harmed. My communities have been harmed. And these bills would take away my ability to have recourse for what's happened to me. And that's a deeply unpopular concept. I wanted to pause on that too because it just seems like such a clear cut case of giving immunity to companies. It's hard to imagine anyone being in favor of that other than the companies themselves. And as you mentioned, the fact that states like Iowa, which are about as industry ag friendly as you can possibly get, the fact that it didn't pass here is such a huge indicator of just how out of the realm of normal it is to pass this kind of legislation. It would be tried in a court of law and it would be decided by a normal judicial process and they're trying to prevent that from even happening. So anyways, I just I needed to vent a little because it's such a blatantly corporate against the people situation. But yeah, I really appreciate what you said about the importance of people's personal stories. And I know you've been doing a lot of thinking about that and analyzing the ways in which different states have tried to combat some of these bills. So could you go into a little bit more detail about some of the strategies that you thought were successful and how they impacted the discussions? That's a really great question. Starting with Iowa, I'll just go a little bit more in depth to why I think this strategy of centering people's voices is so powerful and why that's been so successful. Sixes spent the past year talking with policymakers and advocates in Iowa and analyzing how you all defeated this bill for now the third year running. And what we've consistently been hearing over and over again is that it was because policymakers went out into the communities went out into rural spaces in Iowa and listened. They didn't talk. They didn't educate. They didn't try to drum up support for their viewpoint of this bill. They simply listened to what the communities were experiencing, what they felt like the solutions could be and what mattered to them, what was impacting them in this moment. And what happened was really interesting when these policymakers were going out into the communities, pesticides were not mentioned. The bear bill was not mentioned initially around the bow. And instead what happened is that as people were telling their stories, pesticide use, chemical use, pesticides in farming and agriculture, we're just coming up organically in the conversation. These would be farmers that have relied on pesticides or glyphosate around up for a long time. And they're feeling maybe betrayed by the fact that they weren't warned about these cancer issues or these health issues that came from the use of these chemicals. And what it really allowed was for policymakers to then counter the narrative that was being pushed by the industry that farmers needed this bill to be able to farm because of the farmers and the producers and the sales are coming and saying, hey, I have been harmed by this. You're essentially pointing out that the corporations are just lying and spending their own narrative so that they can have their bottom line be benefited by the passage of these bills. And that's a thing. So nationally, there is over 177,000 lawsuits against bear for this issue, for the harms caused by their products. And so what we're seeing and what's clear to us as an organization that works at the state level, but nationally is that these bills, these state bills, these pesticide immunity bills, what's happening with the Supreme Court, what's happening with the pesticide immunity language in the farm bill, what's happening in the Trump administration with the executive order about increasing production of glyphosate. All of that is part of a chemical strategy to essentially not have to pay the people that are harmed to stop these lawsuits. It's all part of a large strategy. It's really about money to them. And being able to counter that narrative through personal story was what was really successful in other states. It's a little harder to see exactly what's working, what's been successful. I think there's a variety of reasons that maybe some of them have stalled out. Beyond just the fact that grassroots groups are really turning out strong opposition in a lot of states to these bills. It's also a short session. Many states have alternating sessions and long short sessions. Some are short of 30 days. These sessions in 2026 are meant to be about budget reconciliation and how to manage the budget for states and substantial policy changes are not as common during these sessions as they are next session. So that could be contributing to why some of these bills haven't moved because there just hasn't been the political well given the numerous budget crises happening. But I think that is probably an important piece to note because next year we're going into a long session where there is going to be a lot more substantial policy discussion. And I guarantee that these bills are going to come up again. They're going to keep trying it. And especially if the Supreme Court doesn't go the way they want it, then we're going to need to watch out because they're going to try to push these through rapidly. So preparing, building those relationships with the communities building those relationships with people that are
impacted now ahead of the 2027 session is going to be really critical to mounting a full defense when these bills come back. And just to go back a little bit to one of the things you said, I love that approach of having the listening sessions and the fact that farmers were among the people who were speaking out the most at those sessions. And I think if there's any theme that has come out of these podcasts, I feel like one of the big themes is the groups that pretend to represent farmers when they're setting policy really don't represent farmers a lot of the time. They represent big corporations and it's hard to find a more clear example than the pesticide immunity bills where it's really not for the benefit of individual farmers. It's for the companies themselves. Yeah. When you think about who policymakers hear from the most in the building or just in general, who they hear from the most, farmers are farming. rural communities live multiple hours away from the capital. Those are not the people that legislators get to hear from on a regular basis. Who are they hearing from? They're hearing from the lobbyists and they're hearing from the corporate industry councils. Those are the people that are in the building every day, whispering in the ear of policymakers and so policymakers need opportunities and outlets to break out of hearing from those that claim they represent the people but are actually representing the corporations and instead actually hearing from the people themselves. And so these listening sessions that were done in Iowa are a really fantastic example of how advocates can resource state legislators to actually connect directly with the communities and break out of that cycle of just hearing from corporate representatives. And the listening sessions in Iowa, I know they were organized in part by representative Strinivas working with Iowa farmers union and they were also bipartisan. They were usually Republican members who were part of those and I don't know if you can share this but I think I remember a story from you that was pretty powerful about one of these listening sessions where someone's personal testimony clearly moved the legislators. Reptree Nivas shares as much better than I do. This is our story so I'm not doing this justice but I can share that you're right. The whereby partisan and not really was I think a conscious choice on behalf of the rep as well as Iowa farmers union to make these a space where regardless of political ideologies or parties, folks could come together both the community and policymakers could come together to actually address this and discuss this crisis that's happening in Iowa right now. This cancer crisis, I think you all have been working on and many others in Iowa have been working on now for multiple years that has been decades in the making. And Reptree Nivas often shares a story of how she did a lot of work on her and to get her colleagues there. We might be a group that specifically is focused on working on policy, rooted in progressive values. But that being said, we recognize that the folks that we work with and we work with all sorts of folks in the legislature, if you want to get anything done, you have to work in a bipartisan manner. It's not possible to not. These are legislators that are well equipped to be bringing other folks into the conversation that may be in different political parties in ways that sometimes advocates groups struggle with because we're just not as used to it for whatever reasons. She made it a point to specifically invite her Republican colleagues to these listening sessions, especially if they were in or near their district to hear from the folks directly. And she tells a story of how during one session before one session, one of the colleagues that she invited said, I'm here out of courtesy to you. We work well together. We've done work in the past. But from what I know about this bill, I'm going to support it. And there's nothing that you can change my mind about. And she's, okay, that's fine. Thanks for being here. I'm so glad you came. Really glad to have you. Let's hear from the folks in the session. And so they did. And afterwards, the legislator that said that they were going to support the bill before came back to her and was like, I can't support this bill. I had no idea that this is what this was going to do to people. And it's just a really powerful example of how stories can create change in our in our governance system. I think a lot of people see state legislatures as being very stuck in their ways. Lots of bureaucracy, lots of processes, maybe overworked processes. And that can be true in a lot of sense. Like it's a pretty challenging environment to work in. And yet policy makers are just people too. They ran because regardless of their party, they ran because they felt like they could best represent their community. But that's why policy makers are in this. They don't get paid hardly anything. State legislator makes very little money. So what is really the power of people to connecting with other people as a way to actually change, to beat the corporations that have really taken over our governance system? And that's really powerful in this day and age when it feels very challenging. It feels inevitable. The corporations are going to win to have the ability to change people's minds through sharing of personal stories is really powerful. It is really something to celebrate the fact that in this time where it just seems like more and more the disparities are growing and the corporations have more and more power over the lives of individuals. I appreciate you saying that. So one aspect of it is the personal stories are really powerful and can move people. But there's also this interesting dynamic going on with the Mahah movement. So I'm curious if you have any thoughts on how that comes to play in this debate about pesticide immunity because it seems like Mahah, if they're just talking on their own, they're very much opposed to pesticide immunity. So what are your thoughts on how the Mahah movement has played into these discussions? Yeah, I think it's been really fascinating to see how the Mahah movement has played into this. So six doesn't work with Mahah folks. That's not really our jam. That's not necessarily what we do. But we've recognized that there's a lot of folks out there that do and there's a lot of overlap. And I think this goes back to this idea that six really champions in that we can be from different political parties. We can have different political ideologies or identities. But regardless of where you live, whether you're rural, urban, suburban, red state, blue state, purple state, we all have shared values that are actually quite often in alignment with each other. We're just using different language to talk about it. Democrats use democratic language, progressives use progressive language, conservatives use more conservative language. So I think what this illustrates is a perfect example of how there are shared values regardless of political ideology, healthy foods, healthy families, healthy communities. Those are shared values, democratic choice, the ability to participate in our governing process. These are all shared concepts that we can all rally around. Obviously, there's a lot of things about Mahah, then I think a lot of folks that I've heard from outside this issue. But I do think that it's this is an issue that could really create unique bedfellows in a way that builds a movement and builds bridges across the divides that have been created through this fracturing caused by culture wars in our society over the last however many years. And yeah, it's really interesting to see I don't know where it's going to go. Obviously with the Trump executive order around increased glyphosate production, Kennedy backed him. And you see the news articles that's causing a bunch of issues within the Mahah movement because of that. We'll see where this goes, but I think this issue shows it can be done. There can be bridging across political ideologies. And that there might be more issues out there that we actually are values aligned on that we may not even recognize at this moment and could be building diverse coalitions to really take on corporate power in our governing systems in a way that we have not been that successful at up until this point. That's interesting. And tying it back to the cancer listening sessions too. I/O Farmers Union and Rep. Surnomas had those listening sessions with I/O Environmental Council. We were planning listening sessions at the same time also about cancer and we went around over the summer. And one thing that jumped out to me so much is that it seemed like people needed a space to be able to talk about this issue and vent about cancer. And like you said, it didn't even have to be anyone from our group bringing up the environmental factors or pesticides. It just came out from the people themselves and it felt like there was this underlying need where they didn't have good spaces to talk about this elsewhere. And so fulfilling this opportunity to actually voice these concerns. And anyways, and tying this back in because I wonder if Maha has similar roots of people feeling like they didn't have a good vehicle to express some of these concerns and that is being funneled into this movement now that does have political power. But it's also reflective of this underlying feeling from a lot of people that their interests aren't being respected when it comes into conflict with these big corporations. I think that's right. The US was founded on agriculture as a country. So from the beginning, our political system has favored policies that reinforce power hoarding and financial hoarding and labor hoarding among the elite. That's how our policies were formed in our food and agriculture system. So then you get to this breaking point 300 years
down the line of we cannot have a health in our communities, health in our economy, health in our environment. If all it is was resource extraction by a few individuals where the rest of us have to carry the harms, the outcomes from this resource extraction, K-Fos, Effectory Farms, its pesticides, its data centers, and I think what we're seeing here is a moment where regardless of where you are on the issue, we cannot continue to have the governing system that perpetuates policies and regulations that benefit financial hoarding and resource hoarding. It cannot go forward this way. So what do we do about it? I was getting into a deep critique. I love it, but to pull it back a little bit more of the specific issue, when you talked about what was happening at the state level, how do you balance those efforts with all of the madness happening with Trump's executive order and the Supreme Court case and the Farm Bill? How do you see all of those things interconnecting? Yeah, it's a lot. Specifically on this issue, our movement and the folks that are opposed to pests, the site immunity are really under attack here in this moment in time. We got the state bills, we got the EO, like you said, we got the Supreme Court case, Farm Bill, it's all coming to a head, and those six works specifically with state legislators. We work at the state level. We recognize that what's happening at the federal level, what's happening in the courts, what's happening at the local level, all of that is going to interplay together. They're all going to impact one another. I think there's a lot of incredible groups right now that are working on the national level that are trying to repeal the provisions in the Farm Bill that have the pesticide immunity language. There's groups and we're starting to join those groups that are working on the SCOTUS case specifically and what states and state legislators, policymakers, communities can do to push back on that. And of course, there's some federal bills that have been introduced that would essentially stop the executive order that Trump put out to increase glyphosate production. So there's a lot of incredible people doing really good work both at the state level and the national level. Something we see is that some people might say, even within our movement, why given what's happening at the federal level, why should we still continue to focus on the state pesticide preemption if it's just going to be a minute point if the SCOTUS case goes in the direction that Monsanto wants it if or if the Farm Bill passes with the pesticide immunity preemption, what's the point of us continuing to focus on the states when all the stuff at the federal level is happening? And I would argue that a lot of corporate strategy actually starts at the states because they know if they can get a running start in the state, then they can get greater buy-in at the federal level. And I would say the opposite is also true. If we can get enough states saying no, we do not want this, then there is momentum built at the federal level for the folks that are working there to be like, look at all of these states, look at all of these state legislators, look at all of these people that do not want this, that say that this is not okay for them, that they have a right to have a say in the health and safety of their communities. So I actually feel even if a bear bill is dead or even if there's no way that there's going to be a vote on it because there's maybe concern that if there was a vote then folks would have to get on the record of saying no, a part of me is maybe we should push for these votes on these bills so that we can show that enough people don't want them that it could help our efforts at the federal level too. We see it happen, obviously the corporations are using this to their advantage. Let's use the strategy to our advantage. How can we take what's happening at the state level, the movement that's being built in the grassroots at the state level and use it to help us at the federal level in these major fights? That's really clever. Okay, so on the federal level, I understand what the Supreme Court decision would do and if the Farm Bill passed with the language but didn't Trump also in the executive order claim that he was granting pesticide immunity like the way of his magic emperor want. Does that have any actual authority or what's the status of how the executive order would impact lawsuits? Yeah, that is not a question. I am a quick answer. I'm not a federalist but what I do know is exactly like you said. So first of all, he said it was a national security risk and this, you know, was because we have a national security risk, because Bayer has said that they have essentially threatened to stop production of glyphosate due to these ongoing litigation losses that they're experiencing, which is in the billions of dollars. Sending aside that argument that it's a national security risk and Bayer stops producing glyphosate. What the EO does is that he's basically saying increased domestic production of glyphosate and provide immunity to producers that complied with this executive order. So my understanding is it's not necessarily about the lawsuits but for those that do increase production of glyphosate, they would have some sort of immunity under this executive order. But again, I am not a federal expert and probably want to double check with someone that is very well informed about the EO. Yeah, sounds dubious if you would actually be able to provide immunity. So what would you recommend for people who are listening, who care a lot about this issue and want to get involved? What would you suggest that they do? I have a couple of ideas about how folks can get involved. The first is going back to this power of stories that we've talked about a lot. It's really important that people make noise right now about these bills. So about the state bills, the farm bill, the executive order, go to this case, what would this do to them if it was implemented? What would be the direct impact on their life, on their job, on their farming, if these presentations that are happening at the state and federal level are implemented? So making noise, sharing stories, really being up in front because the narrative, the corporations are pushing is silly in my opinion because they're basically hoping that people don't understand what it is they're trying to do. So if we can pull back the veil on what the ramifications of these policies, these orders would do to real people, we can undermine their narrative that this is what farmers need, that this is what farmers want, what rural communities need, what rural communities want. So one is really important that people share their stories. So connecting with groups like yourself that are holding listening sessions, talking with their policy makers, you can email them, you could leave phone messages, if you're happened to be in the state capital, you can even go and drop by their office as a constituent. It's possible to do these things and I encourage folks to do that and share their story. I have to say I have not seen many state legislators at this point who absolutely refuse to speak with one other constituent. So just keep that in my think. You'll at least get a staffer if they have one willing to chat with you for a few minutes. The other thing is we know at six that state legislators really want to hear from their constituencies. So again, sharing these stories with them. And then for us at six, if there is a state policymaker that happens to be listening to this and you want to get more involved in this, or if you don't have a barrier bill in your state, we're now starting to encourage policymakers to take a more offensive approach to toxic policy in general. So you might not have a barrier bill in your state. You might be in a super majority state where your parties and power, whatever it might be, you might be in a purple state. There's opportunities to continue building that positive vision forward, even without the threat of pesticide immunity. How can we create policies that make our communities safer? And we really are encouraging legislators to think critically about this question and then go into their communities and ask them, what is it that you need? Vermont, I'll just throw out this example right now, is doing some really interesting stuff around offensive toxic policies, policies that would ban roadenta sides, ban periquot, and also ban heavy metals found in baby food and formula. These are the types of policies that can increase public health, can protect communities, and you don't have to be under the threat of pesticide immunity to be able to do this kind of work. If your state policymaker reached out to six, we would be happy to help, we'd be happy to connect you with other policymakers. And if you are an advocate or community person that is working with a policymaker, there is connected with a policymaker, maybe your policymaker, and you want them to get more support to work on this issue, you want them to take action? Let us know too. We would be happy to get in contact with them. We'd be happy to support them as they navigate this issue as they learn more about it. Really, I would say sharing your story, connecting with your policy makers to share your story, and connecting with groups like you all, and six, and Iowa Farmers Union, or your Farmers Union, your state, all those things will be really good. Excellent. And do you have any favorite resources? Someone just wanted to get the basic information about pesticide immunity bills, which groups have helpful resources on that? Yeah, so right now, a lot of the groups leading a lot of the federal stuff, but also states have as well, beyond pesticides, is doing a great job. Environmental working group has some stuff, especially around the paracquot bands and offensive tactics and strategy. We have some stuff. It's state legislator specific to have you just share some stuff with policymakers. But yeah, pan pesticide action network is another one. There's a lot of groups out there that are coming together around this issue and reaching out to any of those or even reaching out to me. I'd be happy to talk with anyone and everyone. I will include some of those links. Thank you so much for
Joining me today, Emma, I just so happy you're out there doing this important work and your theory of change sounds excellent and it's great to know that people are thinking so strategically about these important issues. So, really appreciate you joining me. Thank you so much, Adam. It was wonderful to join you too to appreciate all the work you're doing in Iowa and beyond. That's it for this week's episode of Canary in a Cornfield. Just a reminder you can find a Harkin Institute on social media which includes X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok and find our webpage at
[email protected]. And this podcast is also posted by Subtdac Canary in a Cornfield which will include some additional lace and resources that go beyond just what's in the episode. So thank you all for tuning in and I will be topping with you soon. [Music]
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