Wednesday, June 5

Today, like many of Iowa’s youth before me, I left the farm. I’ve learned a lot in my three weeks here. My mind was tickled by the societal differences like the evident feud between John Deere and International Harvester-Case tractors (green v. red), the curiosity of wild asparagus or Iowa’s love for its State Fair. As I ponder more: Are there really that many differences or are we connected to the farm more than we think? Everyone is connected to the farm; whether through personal ties or simply just eating food that was grown there. As I was learning about all the problems with agriculture over these three weeks I kept coming back to one conclusion. Our society has caused all this. Our reliance upon corn as America’s cash crop has degraded our soil, reduced biodiversity and is fueling more problems than it’s doing us good. There are so many other players that all combine in fueling these problems, like the government, the consumer, Big Ag or chemical companies. There is no one scapegoat, we all play a part. However, I believe a lot of these problems can be fixed if we start to use conservation practices, increase our biodiversity and demand better farming practices.