Unyielding is a College of Missouri Faculty of Journalism challenge for Examine Midwest.
KENNETT, MO. — Nestled in Missouri’s Bootheel is the small city of Kennett, the Dunklin County seat. With simply over 10,000 residents, it’s a close-knit neighborhood the place good-natured teasing is a typical present of affection.
As soon as a sprawling swampland, it has since been reworked into an expanse of flat, fertile fields the place agriculture stands because the spine of the area’s economic system.
Kennett’s homes don’t get a lot taller than one story, and as guests stroll down the primary avenue, they’re welcomed by a mixture of eating places, boutiques and a comfortable hair salon. These buildings are dwarfed in dimension by a silent, boarded-up hospital, its emptiness a remembrance of what the neighborhood has misplaced.
It’s the type of neighborhood the place if one thing tragic occurs, everybody finds out.
Bobbi Bibbs discovered this out the laborious approach. She found she had most cancers in her colon in December 2023, which then metastasized to her liver, making it a stage 4 prognosis.
Bibbs isn’t alone. Dunklin County is among the many 10 counties with the very best charges of that kind of most cancers within the state. This isn’t only a statistic, Bibbs mentioned she will see it and virtually can’t fathom it.
“There are such a lot of (instances) the place we’re from,” Bibbs mentioned. “Like, it’s acquired to be coming from someplace.”
Bibbs is surrounded by individuals who perceive her struggles, a lot of whom work within the agriculture trade. In Dunklin County, there are a whole bunch of hundreds of acres of crops — and most of that land is blanketed by pesticides.
Estimates recommend that hundreds of kilograms of pesticides are sprayed over Missouri cropland annually. In some locations, wastewater sludge containing “eternally chemical substances” — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — is utilized on farmland as fertilizer.
A number of scientific research have explored a connection between pesticide use and most cancers, pointing to a silent public well being disaster hitting rural communities significantly laborious.
The College of Missouri, in partnership with Examine Midwest, carried out a county-by-county evaluation of most cancers charges and pesticide use, utilizing probably the most just lately obtainable information for pesticides which might be repeatedly cited in analysis as more likely to be related to most cancers danger.
The six counties with the very best use of those pesticides per sq. mile are all situated within the Bootheel, together with Dunklin. 4 of these counties are within the prime 15 for general most cancers charges in Missouri. All counties with the very best charges of most cancers are rural.
So in Kennett, there are excessive charges of chemical utilization, excessive charges of most cancers — and the nearest trauma middle within the state is greater than an hour and a half away.
In different phrases, it’s a typical rural city in Missouri.
Inexperienced hills and kilograms of chemical substances
Whereas Missouri has its share of rolling hills coated in bushes and wild foliage, a lot of the land is properly developed to go well with the wants of farmers and their crops. There are about 27 million acres of Missouri farmland being cultivated and practically 88,000 farms, in line with the Rural Farm & Finance Coverage Evaluation Heart.
The most important enterprise within the state is agriculture, using about 460,000 statewide, in line with the Missouri Division of Agriculture. Soybeans, corn and wheat are a number of the crops that shade a lot of the state’s panorama.
Farming is a harmful job that requires a great deal of heavy gear and specialised instruments. These instruments embrace chemical substances.
Isain Zapata is an information scientist who researched the connection between pesticides and the incidence of most cancers. He seemed on the advanced mixtures of pesticides tailor-made to particular crops which might be sprayed in numerous areas.
“After we have a look at these pesticides, it’s not only one — it’s all a cocktail,” Zapata mentioned. “It’s the entire rainbow of various colours.”
He discovered that these colourful mixtures are strongly linked to sure most cancers charges throughout the nation.
“Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukemias are very intimately related to pesticide use,” Zapata mentioned. “However we additionally noticed that the general pesticide use has an impact on all the opposite non-obvious cancers.”
Different analysis exhibits an affiliation between sure pesticides and an elevated danger of mind, prostate, breast, kidney and colon cancers.
Pesticides are a classification of drugs used to guard crops. This consists of killing weeds, bugs and even strengthening wooden to stop pests from harming the plant. Farmers sometimes apply pesticides to crops utilizing strategies equivalent to aerial spraying or ground-based gear.
Critical dangers are posed by pesticides as a result of they’ll hurt each human well being and the atmosphere. Publicity might result in short-term or long-term well being issues, whereas additionally contaminating soil and water, which can disrupt ecosystems and have an effect on wildlife.
However pesticides do what they do finest. Zapata emphasizes that with out pesticides, agriculture-based economies and the communities tied to them would undergo.
“I’m not in favor or towards pesticides,” Zapata mentioned. “I do know we want them. I don’t like them, however I do know why they must be there.”
He mentioned rural agricultural areas are residence to an intense mixture of things that multiply the danger stage.
Farmers are below strain to keep up or enhance their productiveness, and that comes at the price of utilizing compounds that carry well being dangers, Zapata mentioned. Rural areas are sometimes underserved by well being care services, that means there are sometimes too few well being suppliers and assets in theose areas to watch and handle the added danger of utilizing pesticides.
“It’s simply the right storm,” Zapata mentioned. “You mix a number of components (heavy pesticide utilization, poor regulation and monitoring, socioeconomic disparities), you’ve made it worse.”
The million-acre freeway
Mike Milam is a neighborhood professional in pesticide software. Based mostly in Kennett, he’s a subject specialist in agriculture and atmosphere for MU Extension, serving Dunklin, New Madrid and Pemiscot counties.
“I’ve had folks inform me, particularly those who don’t like chemical substances in any respect (that) our our bodies weren’t designed to breathe these chemical substances,” Milam mentioned. “And so they’re proper about that.”
The herbicide Roundup is the goal of hundreds of lawsuits claiming it causes most cancers, placing it within the highlight. Milam listed different chemical substances which have induced concern, together with paraquat, vydate and dicamba.
Farmers and the employees employed to reap crops incessantly work together with chemical substances. From mixing to pouring to spraying, they’re there for all of it. Additionally they encounter different farmers’ chemical substances when a substance sprayed in a single space drifts someplace it was not supposed to be.
“I’ve recognized a state of affairs (the place) folks out within the fields acquired sprayed, or they sprayed subsequent to them, after which it drifted over. And issues like that,” Milam mentioned. “Matter of truth, after I was in graduate college, I used to be in a subject down in Louisiana, they usually have been spraying proper subsequent to us. We truly needed to depart the sphere.”
Direct drift happens when an applicator applies a pesticide and the wind blows it elsewhere, making monitoring climate situations an integral a part of the method. The stronger the wind, the stronger the potential is for drift.
That mentioned, farmers have a restricted window to seed and fertilize their fields throughout planting season. Fluctuating climate situations could make this much more troublesome. This spring alone, the Bootheel confronted tornadoes, mud storms and historic flooding, all of which have the potential to hinder subject work.
“We exit right here, we will plant a crop, it appears to be like lovely, a flood wipes it out, and we gotta begin again over,” mentioned Sen. Jason Bean, R-Holcomb, a fifth-generation Bootheel farmer.
Milam mentioned that some farmers find yourself spraying their crops when situations aren’t preferrred.
“The farmers aren’t paying consideration or simply resolve to go forward and (apply) anyway as a result of they should get it performed,” Milam mentioned. “They’re below a number of stress, they’re attempting to get the crops in.”
Jason Mayer, a fourth-generation Bootheel farmer and one of many administrators for the Missouri Soybean Affiliation, believes that, 9 occasions out of 10, farmers are doing the suitable factor. In his thoughts, it’s the “dangerous actors” going towards finest practices. Bean compares this to rushing on the freeway.
In his analogy, like drivers on the street minding the velocity restrict, most farmers comply with the principles. Simply as there’ll at all times be that driver blowing previous everybody else within the left lane, there will likely be farmers who break the principles.
Agricultural regulators — such because the Missouri Division of Agriculture or EPA — function the cop on the aspect of the street within the metaphor. They step in when misuse is suspected. Environmental Safety Company inspectors can present up at any time and ask to see a farmer’s information, Milam mentioned.
With thousands and thousands of acres of farmland in Missouri, that’s one large freeway to observe. So if businesses don’t catch somebody breaking the principles, it may well fall to native farmers to report their neighbors to the state pesticide management workplace.
Bean emphasised that correct pesticide software isn’t nearly compliance, it’s additionally within the farmer’s finest curiosity. Misuse wastes expensive chemical substances, reduces crop effectiveness and reduces client belief in domestically grown produce.
“I’d say we’re nice stewards of the land,” Bean mentioned. “We’re going to proceed that, as a result of within the large image, farmers wish to produce for the world the most secure, ample product.”
Milam mentioned the secret’s to make use of the chemical substances appropriately to reduce publicity. He mentioned sporting private protecting gear throughout software is a finest follow. So doing issues like sporting lengthy pants, long-sleeved shirts, masks and goggles is crucial for secure use.
Bean doesn’t imagine pesticides trigger or enhance the danger of most cancers. Mayer echoes this sentiment, emphasizing his lifelong expertise round crops and chemical purposes.
“I’m 42 — knock on wooden — at this time,” Mayer mentioned. “I’m nonetheless comparatively younger, completely wholesome, and I’ve been on the farm since I used to be 14.”
Ready on a ready room
Hanging up a dialog about well being care in Kennett is certain to result in one matter: the hospital.
Kennett doesn’t have one anymore; Twin Rivers Regional Medical Heart closed its doorways in 2018.
For fast stitch-ups or an infection therapy, St. Bernards Pressing Care is open on daily basis. It closes at 7:30 p.m., that means that Kennett residents must go elsewhere for his or her nighttime care.
There are numerous choices in close by counties, and even in neighboring states, but when somebody wants emergency care, for instance, it’s a trek.
Whereas there’s a Mercy Hospital situated in close by Dexter with a rotation of specialty docs, the closest Missouri trauma middle to Kennett is in Cape Girardeau, about an hour and a half away.
“(If) I’ve a coronary heart assault at eight o’clock at evening, or stroke, and if (the pressing care) was nonetheless open, they may give me that little fancy capsule and assist get me to the hospital to assist,” mentioned Cheryl Bruce, the chief director of the Dunklin/Stoddard Caring Council, a corporation based mostly in Kennett providing an assistive providers program to Dunklin County residents with most cancers.
Kennett’s outdated hospital constructing continues to be standing in town’s primary drag. The home windows are boarded up, and strolling via the halls requires ducking wires and tiptoeing over glass shards.
The present proprietor is in a zoning battle to show the hospital into one thing. They haven’t been capable of finding consumers but as a result of they want varied approvals from the town to do any work to make the constructing sellable.
Kennett isn’t alone in going through minimal well being care entry. Since 2014, 21 hospitals have shut down statewide, together with 12 in rural areas, in line with the Missouri Hospital Affiliation.
Moreover, the Heart for Healthcare High quality and Cost Reform’s 2023-2024 report discovered 26 rural hospitals in Missouri are liable to closure on account of monetary pressure — 9 of them are at an “rapid danger.”
The Twin Rivers CEO mentioned in a 2018 assertion that the hospital’s closure was a part of an effort to consolidate operations with Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Heart, “as well being care supply evolves and medical innovation makes inpatient providers much less wanted,.” KFVS12 TV reported on the time.
It was a palpable loss for Kennett — folks miss the hospital, Bruce mentioned.
“When the hospital closed, all anyone has ever talked about is, ‘Are we going to get one other one?’ ” Bruce mentioned.
From 2020 to 2024, the Caring Council’s most cancers assistive providers program spent $22,650 serving to over 400 folks with transportation. For most cancers care, people in Kennett usually journey an hour to Jonesboro, Arkansas, or an hour-and-a-half to Cape Girardeau in Missouri. No matter type of most cancers care you want,, Bruce mentioned, you’ve acquired to drive to get it.
The shortage of well being care suppliers additionally means early detection of medical points, together with most cancers, might be more durable to get.
Some well being care transportation packages can be found in rural areas, however Bruce mentioned she sees a necessity in her neighborhood for extra strong providers.
“I’m not asking for a bus system like in St. Louis or Kansas Metropolis or Jeff Metropolis,” Bruce mentioned. “I’m simply asking for entry to care, no matter which means.”
Sprayed on all sides
Wherever you go in Kennett, there will likely be somebody who’s known as it residence their entire life. Kennett’s Metropolis Clerk Jan McElwrath is a kind of folks. Other than a short stint on the College of Missouri, she’s spent practically all of her 68 years on the town.
She got here again for a basic motive: love. She acquired married, raised a household and constructed a life rooted in the identical streets the place she grew up.
Over the a long time, she’s seen companies open and shut, celebrated numerous neighborhood milestones and weathered pure disasters. By all of it, McElwrath has noticed one fixed: regardless of differing beliefs and opinions, the folks of Kennett at all times discover a approach to come collectively.
“Our energy is our folks, arms down,” she mentioned.
That is particularly necessary when contemplating the distinctive challenges of rural dwelling.
An index created by the CDC exhibits that Dunklin is the county in Missouri least ready to cope with financial or environmental challenges. Based on Feeding America, over 20% of Dunklin County is meals insecure, even supposing the area is roofed in farmland. Milam mentioned that that is largely as a result of the farms in Dunklin are agronomic, which is when crops aren’t at all times grown for direct human consumption.
“It could assist lots of people if that they had contemporary greens,” he defined.
As manufacturing jobs moved out of many locations within the Bootheel, Kennett felt the financial sting. Although Cim-Tek Filtration’s arrival two years in the past introduced again some manufacturing jobs, Kennett misplaced its Emerson Motor Firm plant in 2006.
One trade that continues to be is agriculture.
The land is dotted with cotton, soybean and rice row crop operations. McElwrath calls the rows of cotton prepared for choosing “southern snow,” however to get that snow, farmers normally have to present crops a nudge with defoliants.
Defoliation is a pure course of, although it may be artificially induced when chemical substances are utilized to the crops to get them to open up, making the white cotton simpler to reap.
McElwrath mentioned it’s laborious to note farmers defoliating at first. However then, all of the sudden, your sinuses sting, your eyes burn, perhaps a headache creeps in. It at all times appears to hit across the similar time yearly, proper when the county truthful is happening — with the mud, the dry soil, the demolition derby — every part mixing collectively.
It’s not simply that the defoliants make issues occur faster; they assist make the cotton the next grade — which means there may be much less particles affecting the ultimate product. The grade determines the worth.
Many residents of Kennett acknowledge the necessity for defoliants and different agricultural chemical substances. For a few of them, that’s what places meals on the desk. However then the time of 12 months creeps round once more, they usually all expertise that acquainted sensation.
“We’re surrounded by agriculture,” McElwrath mentioned. “We acknowledge (chemical substances) as a danger, however our economic system right here may be very depending on agriculture.”
Learn the remainder of the sequence.
Unyielding was produced by college students on the College of Missouri Faculty of Journalism. The staff included researchers, reporters, information analysts, photographers and graphic designers. The scholars, most of whom have been seniors who graduated in Could 2025, included:
Reporters: Mary McCue Bell, Alex Cox, Jonah Foster, Prajukta Ghosh, Adeleine Halsey, Ben Koelkebeck, Xander Lundblad, Lillian Metzmeier, Kyla Pehr, Seth Schwartzberg, Savvy Sleever and Mayci Wilderman.
Information and graphics: Alex Cox, Yasha Mikolajczak and Mariia Novoselia
Images: Michael Baniewicz
For questions in regards to the challenge, please contact Mark Horvit, horvitm@missouri.edu.
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