These past three days have been so busy that we haven’t even had time to write our blogs! On Tuesday night, we went to see the movie Farmland. It was really good, and I think it deserved better ratings than it got. My favorite “character” was the girl who started her own organic farm and CSA. I liked it because she is the first and most likely only person who we’ve heard about to be able to successfully farm without inheriting a family farm. It was one of my favorite movies we’ve watched, but at this point I feel like I didn’t learn anything from it. I liked hearing all the opinions and seeing all of the stories, but I felt like I have already heard everything that was covered.

Yesterday evening, we rushed over to an organic farm in southern Iowa called Blue Gate. The owners were very nice. It was a huge operation! They had employees and lots of land. They described the way they do their crops, which is a rotation so that they never plant the same family of plants two years in a row. It was very clear that they cared a lot about the environment and really built up their soil quality in the time that they had been there. I’m still confused how organic farms deal with pests, though. It seems like there are lots of different ways, and I haven’t understood any of them. Hearing about the herbicide spraying incident they experienced was hard. It was so devastating for their operation, but I liked hearing that all but one of their CSA members stuck with them through the overspraying incident. Its very clear to me that these organic farms have a much better relationship with their clients than any of the conventional farms. That was very apparent in the Farmland movie as well.

This morning, we went to the ISU extension office. I had no idea there was something like that in every state! Its nice to know that if I have any question that is even remotely related to agriculture, I can call the Clemson extension at home and get an answer. It was also interesting to hear a different opinion about the voluntary versus regulations debate. Almost everyone we’ve heard from, like Denny Friest, has argued that voluntary actions and subsidies are more than enough. Gary Hilmer at the Hardin County NRCS Office, however, made the very good point that subsidies can’t last forever and the voluntary actions just aren’t doing enough.

After that, we talked to Phil Kramer, a representative from Niman farms, which focuses on the animal welfare pork. I really liked the idea, and I will definitely try to buy their products more often. He obviously knew a lot about pigs and their natural behavior. It was nice to find out that there are farms out there whose main priority is the comfort and happiness of the animal. I of course enjoyed all the pictures of the pigs, so that was probably my favorite part of the day. When we got back to the farm, HN’s brother Denny taught us a little more about tiling. When I first heard about it, I actually thought that people were putting things like bathroom tiles under the soil and I was really confused. Instead, it’s more like pipes to control the water flow into rivers and streams. I learned that if your neighbor didn’t want to tile his land and was in your way, you are legally allowed to dump all of your water into his land and basically ruin his crops. The whole talk was very lighthearted and funny.