So today was a day full of firsts, but the first first of the day was that I got to ride on a tractor. More specifically I got to ride in a tractor with Denny Friest while he pulled a field cultivator. Mr. Friest farms a total of 1200 acres with his son Brent, and he did the same with his dad, so he has been farming the same land for quite some time now. He is the first person that I have met that you would consider a full time farmer, which to me means that his sole source of income is from his farm, but he does a lot more outside of just farming. He is an advocate for corn and soybean producers, and he has worked on both the Iowa Corn Growers Association and the Iowa Soybean Association. Beyond that he has done a lot of work with international groups that have come to Iowa to learn about the local agriculture and livestock production. Needless to see he is a very impressive man, and as I walked across the field I was a bit intimidated. This all fell to the wayside when I opened the cab door and he greeted me with a smile a firm handshake. After I got settled in we were off, but I was initially very scared because Mr. Friest didn’t have his hands on the wheel. It turns out that modern day tractors just drive themselves.

While I might have found him intimidating at first, Mr. Friest has made it is goal to educate all sorts of people on how farms actually work, so he was a natural at getting people to relax and just have a conversation. We started off talking generally about his farm and his operation, but quickly moved into the issue of farm inheritance. This is usually a hard topic because for some families this is a very hard issue, but the Friests have it worked out. He talked about how since his son Brent was the only one working on the farm he would take over the operations and get the biggest portion of the farm, and his two siblings would get smaller portions of the farm because they didn’t put in much work on it. In some farm families this can be a highly contested issue and for some it turns into years of legal battles. The Friests on the other hand have their farming operation in a few different corporations, so there will be a smooth transition.

After that we moved onto the issue of regulations and sustainability. This is where Mr. Friest puts in a lot of time when he is not farming. He works to educate people on how conventional farming can be very sustainable, and he works to educate law makers about actual farm practices to create more fair regulations. When looking at sustainability he taught me that you have to look at the technology behind farming. This is what we spent a good bit of time on, but to give the spark notes version advances in technology have allowed farmers to plant more plants per acre, put on less chemicals per acre, and produce more per acre. This was surprising because now farmers can produce almost double the amount per acre then what they used to, but this is also using less chemicals. Using less chemicals means that there is a less chance of them running off and getting into other water supplies. I was super shocked by this, but also really excited because run off is a big issue that I personally see with conventional farming. When talking about regulations I saw a deep sense of frustration with Mr. Friest. He is a man that is always first to adopt and comply with regulations, but the different programs that the government puts out are always using old science and are just blanket programs. Since they are blanket programs some of the ideas don’t work for his farm.

I had a blast with Mr. Friest, and learned more from him in his tractor in one hour then I have any time before. He really showed me what a true Iowan farmer looks like, and showed his dedication to the environment and producing the best crop possible. He also unfortunately reaffirmed that science and farming are not in sync, and I find that very disheartening. I’m glad that he has tried to fix this problem, and I hope to help in fixing this problem myself someday.