I learned a lot today. First, we went and met with representatives from the Leopold Center at Iowa State. Fred Kirschenmann was very pessimistic and really kind of scary, especially since everything he was saying made sense. Matt Liebman, however, was much less drastic and was very adamant that things can change for the better. I liked their idea of perennial crops, but I was unsure whether they meant using plants like prairie grass or developing perennial corn and soybeans. In the middle of talking about the farm crisis, Matt said “every moment of crisis is a moment of grace.” I really liked that and it really resonated with me because I think it showed that people can have hope even in the darkest of times, and there is usually a silver lining.

After we ate lunch and hung out in downtown Des Moines, we went to the Monsanto building in Ankeny. I initially got a bad vibe, and I felt like they were rushing through the tour. We didn’t get to go in the labs like we did in Pioneer, but they did explain what they did. It seemed like they left a lot of things out, though, until we asked about them. For example, they didn’t mention genetic insertion at all until I asked about it at the end of the tour. Also, when I asked about the health pros and cons to feeding livestock stover instead of just corn they seemed to avoid the question and just focus on how they were doing what they were doing. Once we were in the conference room to talk, though, I felt better. They were very open and helpful and honestly they may have skewed my beliefs. I still would rather eat non-GMO and non-chemical food, but I’m not as afraid of it as I was this morning. I think the most interesting thing that I learned was that mandatory labeling for GMOs would raise the price of food $400 per year per family. I’ll definitely have to do more thinking, since they did a good job of shaking my opinions.