Today was pretty much centered around the environmental effects of farming.  We began the day by visiting the Iowa Environmental Council, an alliance of more than 60 environmental or allied groups, that seeks “a safe, healthy environment and sustainable future for Iowa.”  We met with Jen Terry, the agricultural policy specialist, and Susan Heathcote, the Water Program Director (the former being Dr. HN’s high school classmate).  After that, we made a short visit to Dr. HN’s nephew’s home to see his wife’s horse stables.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t too much to do there as we had expected, but we will hopefully make a trip back to help do some “chores”…

The lecture at the IEC was rather short and sweet, as compared to the other interest groups we’ve attended that featured lengthy presentations.  Their primary focus this season is to improve water quality by reducing the amount of nutrients and other pollution in Iowa’s water ways by better enacting and enforcing Water Quality Standards and nutrient reduction strategies.  This is not only for Iowa’s residents and lands but also for the residents and environment along the Mississippi River and the growing “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, an area of nutrient and oxygen depletion at the Mississippi River delta that cannot sustain bottom-level aquatic life.

We had prefaced this presentation by reading a chapter on farming and the environment in Robert Paarlberg’s Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know.  Combined, these two experiences helped humanize both sides of the issue.  Paarlberg began the chapter by saying, “From the perspective of deep ecology, all forms of agriculture damage the natural environment.”  It is essentially the role for all of us to try and minimize this damage.  Everyone loves food that is grown on farms, but agriculture does raise some inherent questions: how much do these activities harm the environment? Who is affected? Who should be held accountable? How should they be held accountable?  The answers to these questions are being fought in courts, legislatures, and in media at all levels of society and politics. Even the most anti-regulation farmers want to have a healthy soil and water base so they can increase the crop yield and continue farming year after year.  As Jen said at the end of her bit of the presentation, (something along the lines of) “we all want the same thing.  We just have different ideas about how to accomplish it.”  Most farmers (at least in developed countries) already follow conservation measures to prevent such problems as soil erosion, drainage issues, drift, and runoff.

However, many farmers do not try their best to install conservation measures on their farms.  Therefore, it is the job of the organizations within the IEC to motivate them to do so.  One thing that struck me is that Jen and the other staff recognized how difficult their efforts may prove to be.  They are striving to make the water quality standards voluntary because they know farmers would volunteer if only to avoid regulation.  I thought it made them seem remarkably down to earth because many criticisms that I’ve seen of environmental activists (especially in the big cities) center around how disconnected they seem to be from the real life farmers and the agricultural system.  All in all, I thought talking with Jen and Susan was yet another great example of an interest group pursuing a sophisticated strategy to accomplish its goal.

P.S. I apologize for not having pictures for these last two posts.  I’ve been slacking off.  I’ll do better!