Again one of the biggest things that stood out to me was yet another way for beginner farmers can get into the industry. I find this to be a common theme among many of these groups trying to introduce farming to a whole new generation. The program that the Practical Farmers of Iowa had set up sounded like a recipe for success in my mind. Within this program, there seemed to be 3 different areas to help the farmers. The first was to encourage saving throughout the year, so PFI will match the amount you save after 2 years of saving. One of the other programs they offer is one where the new farmer is matched up with a farmer who has been around for a long time and grows the same crop as this new farmer. The final of its three efforts to get farmers in is they try to give the new farmers the opportunity to gain farm experience on another farm before they go out on their own and start their own. All three of these projects sound like they would be very helpful as well as need in the coming years, with the current farming population over the age of 60. Utilizing these programs, new farmers will get the experience they need to be successful as well as learning other valuable skills like saving.
Another thing that stood out to me was a graph that Bayer Crop Science showed during our tour of their facility. This chart depicted the change in bills written for GMO and Pesticides. The number of GMO bills have seen a major decrease in the last 3 years. I think this is due to the changing view of GMOs. More and more people are on board with the science behind them and the fact that they do not have a negative impact on humans. However, the thing that has seen a rise in bills has been pesticides, which really began right around the time of the decrease in the GMO bills. I believe the rise of pesticide bills and decrease of GMO bills because the science behind the GMO’s show they are safe and the focus shifted to pesticides.