Norman Bor-LAG

Another day in Iowa brought another day of controversies… and rain. We went to the Agribusiness Association of Iowa who represents larger agricultural companies. Then we went to the Iowa Food Prize to pay our respects to Norman Borlaug (or not). Next up was the Des Moines Water Works Tour which was relevant because a major theme of the book Strom Lake that we were assigned to read prior to our arrival discussed a lawsuit between the Water Works and farmers in Storm Lake over nitrogen run off.

After breakfast at Morris’s we went to the Agribusiness Association of Iowa with Joel Brinkmeyer, Dean Lemke, and Shawn Richmond. Dean Lemke is an environmentalist that works for the association. He has some interesting views about policy and climate change that he was eager to share, bluntly.

Between our two meetings, we toured two notable places downtown Des Moines; the Iowa Food Prize, and Des Moines Water Works. The Iowa Food Prize was pretty much as expected. Norman Borlaug was praised for his efforts to end world hunger. It reveals the normative opinions of Borlaug’s work around Iowa. Personally, I think that Norman Borlaug had great intentions, however, his revolutionized grain came with some negative unintended consequences. The consequences we see specifically in America were lagged (Bor-LAG) but are starting to become more prevalent, in issues like obesity and heart disease. The mass production of a crop promoted the fast food culture and led to the increases of health problems.

By around 4 O’clock we arrived at our final stop of the day, the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation with Professor Emily Heaton. The Center for Advanced Bioenergy is a part of Iowa State University. Our meeting with Dr. Heaton and her class was more of a conversation. It was cool to pick the brains of her and her students about Miscanthus. The group is trying to figure out a way to plant Miscanthus in the potholes of the farmland–essentially wet spots in fields that are unproductive. We saw lots of examples of fields with lots of wet spots as we traveled to meet Dr. Heaton and her students at an ISU facility near Boone. Miscanthus is a perennial, which means it grows back year after year. Corn and soybeans are not. Planting Miscanthus could potentially mean that farmers could cut their workload way down and still make a profit. The idea is gaining a lot of popularity, but there are still a lot of kinks to work out.