What an intriguing Thursday it was, our eighth day in Iowa, the one that brought both laughter and deliberation. As usual, the morning of the 18th began with a delightful breakfast prepared by Diane and her daughter Staci. This fine culinary aliment was just tasteful enough to stimulate our tiresome bodies that had been awaken at 6:00 AM. Although our morning was early, we embraced it with little quarrel, organized hastily into the van and traveled to our first event scheduled for 8:30 in Hubbard, Iowa. There, we were introduced to Ron Barkema, Vice President of Grain at Innovative Ag Services (IAS). As described by Ron, IAS is a full-service agricultural cooperative that sells commodities (notably corn and soybeans) and provide many several services to its members, including application of pesticides, grinding feed for cattle and pigs, and providing propane. Since Ron’s focus was on grain, he mostly discussed his work in marketing grain. He spent time discussing why corn and soybeans commanded a greater price at some of IAS’s location and lesser price at others. Generally, it centered on the transportation costs and the markets for the commodity–in Iowa, corn is generally headed for an ethanol plant or for a facility that blends it into feed for chickens, pigs, or beef cattle Ron also showed us how he spends most of his day watching the price of commodities and what impact that had for the members of his team in terms of buying or selling grain. The morning that we visited him a corruption scandal in the Brazilian government had erupted, and it wasn’t clear what affect this might have on the sale of commodities, so the market was down. He noted that to date there hadn’t been too much of a noticeable blowback from the Trump Administration’s policies regarding trade, which are generally not thought to be good for Iowa’s corn and soybean producers.
Following this event, we met at The Cafe in Ames at NOON with Jennie Smith. This gathering, I can, with full honestly, say was one of our best experiences in Iowa. From the moment Jennie sat at the table we knew this was going to be a great lunch. She was just about the most comical, extroverted, and lovable person we’ve met. Besides all the laughter, which was a lot, she provided much information on some of the issues concerning agriculture in Iowa. She discussed how everyone is responsible for the excess flows of nitrogen into our rivers, that which everyone should be held accountable for. She also talked extensively about her tomato farm operation and how she was successful by “looking at the market first, then choosing what to produce.”
After leaving Jennie, which none of us wanted to do, we traveled to Des Moines Water Works where we were introduced to Jen Terry and Bill Stowe. Jen Terry is an environmental lawyer for Water Works, an independent water utility, who worked with on Water Works lawsuit and is an old friend of HN. She gave us a tour of the facility, informing us of some of the issues concerning the Des Moines water quality and how the facility treats water to comply with state and federal regulations. She also introduced us to the company’s microbiologist who discussed the many methods she uses to test the water quality coming from the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers. Des Moines depends on surface, not ground, water for its drinking water. Bill Stowe furthered the tour by informing us that nitrogen was the main concern of the Des Moines water quality. The nitrogen that runs off from farmlands invades the city’s rivers and negatively affects water quality. For this reason Water Works filed a suit against a number of water drainage districts in Northwestern Iowa for the amount of nitrogen it dumped dumped into the Raccoon River and it sought to have these flows regulated under the Clean Water Act. Following our meeting with Stowe, we dined at the Exile Brewing for supper with Jen at 5:30, which completed our day.