Location, Location, Location

Today marked the end of our first week in Iowa. The day began with a trip to Practical Farmers of Iowa in Ames. Liz Kolbe the Horticulture and Habitat Programs Manager and Steve Carlson the Next Generation Coordinator met with us. The organization was founded in 1985 by a group of farmers who were dissatisfied with the agricultural information they were receiving, so they conducted their own on-farm research and started sharing research on field days. Today, it is still farmer led with 8 farmers and 2 non farmers on its Board of Directors. After Liz discussed the background of the organization, she went into detail about pesticide drift, crop protection, and prevention. Pesticide drift is when a pesticide drifts off target from one farm to a neighboring one and contaminates the crops that are non-resistant to this pesticide. Although all pesticides are prone to drift, dicamba presents a bigger problem because it can become re-airborne hours or days after it is applied. Location is important factor in this issue because if your farm is located downwind to another farm on a windy day, the herbicide drift will damage or even kill crops. It is also difficult to tie it back to where it came from since it can travel for more than two miles, which causes legal issues and disputes because no one is held responsible. Dicamba also has an effect on animals and humans not just crops. Products that contain dicamba are controversial because of their strength. Similar to our discussion at Corteva, Liz explained a different program for protecting crops, the 2015 USDA Whole Farm Revenue Protection plan. The insurance allows farms to protect all their crops at once instead of one crop at a time. This is a good way to support more crop diversity on farms. Whereas our discussion at Corteva covered crop protection products like herbicides for weeds, insecticides, and fungicides, farmers must also invest in crop insurance. Liz finished up with a discussion of prevention methods such as a website known as Drift Watch where applicators can post information when they are using pesticides such as Dicamba to notify other farmers.

Steve Carlson began his career with the organization working the Beginning Farmers Program and is now their Next Generation Coordinator. Two programs that he mentioned included the Savings Incentive Program and the Soil and Water Conservation Districts. The saving incentives programs is a two-year program for farmers who have been farming under five years and are just getting started. It is a three-step process. First, they are given $100 every month to put into their saving account and at the end of the two-year program, the money doubles to $5,000 so they can use it to invest a new asset for the farm. They also get networking or mentorship support from more experienced farmers who are doing similar practices as them. Lastly, they work on business planning and marketing to figure out who their market is, identify their goals, prepare a mission statement, and work on spreadsheets or enterprise budgets to track their progress. The goal is to help build a profitable Farm.  Steve also described how each of Iowa’s 99 have their own soil and water conservation district. There are five elected officials in each county, who each serve a four-year term and meet monthly in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) service center in each county. During their monthly meetings they decide how to allocate funding for different conservation practices based on topography, engagement, and population. Funding goes to projects such as windbreak, cover crops, and rotational grazing. Another responsibility of a commissioner is to provide outreach and education. The organization seems committed to helping farmers run more sustainable farms.

To end our day, we went to Bayer CropScience in Huxley, Iowa to meet with David Tierney. While we were there, we discussed dicamba issues, similar to what we heard earlier in the day. The focus of his discussion was more on solutions to the issue. He described efforts to combat dicamba from drifting to other fields citing Arkansas as being the most restrictive state. In Arkansas, farmers are limited to spraying 45 days after planting and cannot spray after May 20th in order to stop farmers from using the pesticide as much or not at all. Another example is Minnesota where there would be no spray allowed after June 20th. It was good to hear the dicamba drift issue discussed from both a company and farmers’ perspective.

For supper I was given the task to make my one of our family’s favorite recipes (Foil Packet Salsa Chicken, Rice and Veggies) for the group after our long day. I am happy to say everyone liked and praised it.