Six students arrived at Neubauer Family Farms today to begin their adventure in learning about agriculture practices, policies, and politics.  The students are a rare breed–ones who are willing to take a chance on an out-of-the-box experience.  Living in close quarters for three weeks in an old Iowa farmhouse, getting dirty on a regular basis, and hearing their professor wax nostalgic, requires a certain constitution, but the six students have already demonstrated they have the right stuff and in sufficient measure.  We managed to get everyone (and the luggage) in the mini-van, even though it required a certain amount of flexibility and patience on the part of the members.

The project of bringing students to the farm that I own with my brother and sister is largely a labor of love made possible by the many kindnesses shown to me by my brother, Denny, and sister-in-law, Karla, and my nephew, Scott.  As in the past, we have many neighbors involved in sharing their stories of life in an agricultural community, and this year, we’ve added our neighbor, Dalona Fiscus, as our cook.   She prepared a wonderful meal of spaghetti, French bread, and peaches.

The students also watched a video on Henry A. Wallace, who was the architect of the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), the first farm bill and who would have a storied career as a plant geneticist, public servant, and presidential aspirant in 1948.  Wallace is an Iowa icon, and so it seemed appropriate that we would begin our journey into modern day agriculture by considering the person who brought us the first commercialized version of hybrid seed corn and whose work as Secretary of Agriculture profoundly shaped life on the farm and that of farmers since the New Deal.