Caroline Lepczyk

Tuesday, May 29^th

For the past three weeks, six Furman University students spent time in Iowa at the farm where political science professor Dr. Halva-Neubauer’s spent his youth. While we stayed at the farm, we traveled all around the state of Iowa touring farms, museums and crop associations, reading books on the Farm Bill, and watching movies and documentaries about agriculture. We often visited more than one farm or association in a day, watched at least five documentaries about food and agriculture-related issues, and read almost four hundred pages on the subject, so I believe it is safe to say that we are leaving with a wealth of information about agriculture which we would not otherwise have ever come across.

Living in Iowa has been a quite different experience than living on the east coast. Neighbors are rarely closer than half a mile away, trees are few and far between and houses are judged on the ways their lawns are cut. The conversations of farmers concentrate less on sports or national news and more on the weather, community funerals, and recent farm accidents.

This trip has definitely been an enjoyable and enriching experience. Visits to corporate giants Monsanto and Pioneer and organic farms showed us opposing viewpoints on GMOs. Visits to small organic, local farmers, and neighboring large-scale conventional farms also showed us opposing views on the proper way to raise food for human consumption. Although I am still an ardent supporter of GMOs, the trips to small organic farms created an interest in me to join a CSA program. These community supported agriculture programs, where a farm sends weekly or biweekly in-season vegetables and fruits allows people who do not live in rural, farming locations to still have access to fresh produce, and stay in the loop with farming life.

One of the reasons that I originally elected to apply for this May Experience, was because I have had an interest in agriculture for a long time, but have not been sure in what direction I could take that interest. Recently with the biology classes I have been taking at Furman I have discovered an interest in Biological Engineering and Agricultural Engineering. On this trip I was able to learn more about what agricultural engineers do, and was even able to talk to one fore quite a while about the profession. Every time field tiling, nutrient run off and control, waste control, or new tractor technology was brought up, I was reminded of how important agricultural engineering is, and why I was so interested in it. This trip has definitely increased my interest in and knowledge of agriculture and has solidified my dreams of becoming an agricultural engineer and helping the farmers of tomorrow. So, thank you for such a wonderful experience, and wish me luck!

Caroline Lepczyk

Tuesday, May 28^th

Today was the last active day of our May Experience. In the morning we went to the Borlaug Museum,The World Food Prize’s headquarters in Des Moines after which we went to lunch at Zombie Burger before going to the Biocentury Farm in Boone and then to Monsanto in Ankeny. The day was quite interesting, but also very busy.

In the morning when we visited the Borlaug Museum, on the sidewalk out front was a very interesting piece of graffiti. Underneath a skull and crossbones read ‘GMO FOOD TOXIC.’ This warning label applied to the museum because they are avid supporters of both Monsanto and GMOs and received a 5 million dollar donation by the company for their renovation of the museum. The World Food Prize supports GMOs because they do have proof, and belief that genetic engineering of food crops may be able to help us defeat world hunger, and Monsanto is the leading company in genetically engineering crops.

My favorite part of the day was when we visited Monsanto; I had been looking forward to the visit from the very first week. Originally the plan had been to visit in the morning, but the plans were changed so that we visited around 4:30. We talked to lobbyist David Tierney about food production; new vegetables and fruits that carried genetically engineered traits, the trajectory of GE crop production around the world, and the flaws of GMO labeling efforts. After our discussion, we were also given a ‘nickel tour’ of the lab, which was very interesting as we were able to see the new equipment and the how much work the company was able to do.

The company’s main source of concern at this time appears to be the public’s reception of the GMO crops. They are worried that if the legislation which requires genetically engineered foods to be labeled is passed, that the public will elect not to purchase those foods and in turn drive them off of the market. Although they do not believe that GMO foods are dangerous, or have that they have anything to hide, they are worried that the public’s distrust of the new technology will prevent them from purchasing the products I think they’re right. Although in a perfect world it would be nice to know exactly where food comes from and how it is created, it would be incredibly difficult to do this, and without proper education of the public, could result in a negative manipulation of the food market.

This year alone, 26 states saw bills requesting the labeling of genetically engineered food, a two hundred percent increase from the 13 states, which introduced similar bills last year. These bills were most likely instigated both by the labeling initiative now happening in the city of Seattle, which calls for the origins and contents of foods to be listed on the products and the bill introduced (and denied) in California in 2011 which called for the labeling of GMO foods. Although these bills may work in a small city setting such as Seattle, widespread application would be horribly expensive, not only for farmers, but in turn for consumers.

Caroline Lepczyk

Friday, May 24^th

Today we went to Table Top Farm, an organic farm a few miles outside of Nevada Iowa. The farm is run by two young married couples and good friends; the Corbins and the Grans. Chris Corbin and Sally Gran both work full time as farmers at Tabletop, while their spouses work full time at other jobs. Kim Corbin is Chris Corbin’s ‘sugar momma’ who works full time as the Marketing Manager at Wheatsfield Co-op, a local whole foods and organic grocery. She is also a graphic designer and designed both the website for the farm and pamphlet. Luke Gran is Sally Grans husband who works full time at Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI). He also keeps the books for the farm and manages the business plan and payroll. On our visit we were able to meet with all of the owners except for Kim Corbin.

Although the entire tour was very interesting and fun (especially because we were allowed to take an amazingly large amount of kale and other greens home) I found the business practices according to Chris Corbin to be the most interesting. Table Top has a new tractor, which is used for planting and tilling, which I found to be surprising, as I had thought that most organic farming would be done by hand. Chris explained that the reason that they had purchased and were using the tractor was because it greatly decreased the amount of time that was necessary to both till and plant the plots, and time is important because if they are paying their workers to painstakingly plant the crops row by row, it will take many expensive hours and prevent them from moving on to other important things. However, the most interesting thing by far was when one of the other students, Kyle asked if he would stay in the organic farming profession even if it was going to be something where he would make a good profit. Chris answered that no he would not, explaining that if there is not a profit to be made, it is simply not reasonable to stay in a profession. In an ideal world he would like to continue to keep his farm organic to reduce his carbon footprint and keep his workers safe, but if it doesn’t pay, it would not make any sense. This realism is very important in agriculture, although as Brent Friest would say, we would all like to live in our ‘fairy-dream-worlds,’ this is simply not reasonable. Chris is well aware that without his machine, crops would be very expensive, maybe $7 or $8 per pound for potatoes, and there would not be enough of a market to support the farm. We have heard, over and over again, how in order for a farm to be environmentally sustainable, it must first be economically sustainable. Although in our ‘fairy-dream-worlds,’ we would all like to eat fresh, in-season food hand planted and picked straight from the dirt every day this is simply not economically sustainable for most people, and until it is, we will just have to accept the small shortcuts which get us closer to our dreams than we would otherwise be.

Caroline Lepczyk

Thursday May 23^rd

Today we spent our morning at The Cory Family Farm and in the afternoon were able to meet with Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey and his Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Jay Johnson.

To help the Cory boys milk the goats, we left the farm at six o’clock in the morning and arrived at their farm at 7 am. Milking the goats was such a strange experience! It was like nothing I had ever done before, and I wasn’t very good at it. The Cory boys however milked the farm’s eight milk goats quickly and efficiently. After milking the goats, we helped lay down straw in the barn where the nanny goats and kids were kept before moving on to learn about the cows and sheep that the family kept. The Cory’s keep a quite rare breed of beef cattle, called American White Park Cattle. These cattle are said to produce some of the best beef in the world and are a superior beef breed in the modern industry, even on a grass-fed diet.

After looking at the cattle we traveled up the road to the pasture, which I believe was about a quarter section, or a square quarter mile. On the pasture they keep sheep and soon will also move their goats and cattle there. Although they have a good amount of land, right now the sheep are only on a small part of it. Soon they will start a pasture rotation, where the different grazing animals will each be in a pasture for a set amount of time, before they are moved as a group to the next pasture and will move in a train-like group. For example, if the goats are in first pasture, the cows are in the second pasture and the sheep are in the third pasture, when the animals are moved, the sheep will move up to the fourth pasture, the cows will move up to the third pasture and the goats will move up to the second pasture. I’m not sure quite how much pastureland was available for rotations, but I think it was about eleven paddocks worth of land. In the winter, a grain mixture of eleven seeds is sown into these pastures so that they will be good grazing for the animals.

After exploring the pasture and putting up fence we went back to the main farm for lunch. For lunch we had French cut goat chops  and they was surprisingly delicious. During this lunch we learned a little more about the Cory family’s beliefs and practices. Although some of them seemed a little extreme to some of us, they certainly seemed like a very productive, healthy, and happy family.

Though the Cory’s, the Fiscus’s (Fisci) and the Wallace Center all farm organically, there were a few quite obvious differences in their principles. The Fiscus’s struck me as the most ‘normal’ of the three farms. Though they raise an organic garden and allow their chickens and cats to roam freely around their home and home school their five, delightful children, they also still visit the doctor and act as a traditional nuclear family. The Cory Family Farm and the Wallace Center were both more business focused, but had quite different beliefs. The Wallace Center is primarily a restaurant built on the notion of farm-to-table, healthy foods for the community. They may have had a CSA, but I do not remember. Although it was definitely necessary for them to make good money, they clearly cared about the local community. The Cory family on the other hand, seemed to care about their family’s health, and about making money. From the looks of things, the Cory’s had money before they started to farm organically and raise grass-fed animals, which is important, because it is a quite expensive business to go into. Though they probably care very much for some of their neighbors, their market is not local, and their children do not attend public school, which means that their ties to the local community are greatly diminished. I do not mean to say that the Cory’s are not wonderful people, because they did truly seem to be so, however, the local conventional farmers who live around them simply cannot afford the price tags on their meats.

Caroline Lepczyk

Monday May 20^th

Today was a very exciting day! In the morning we visited the seed company, Dupont Pioneer in Johnston before going to Iowa Corn Growers Association in the afternoon, and then later after dinner we watched a film called The World According to Monsanto. The day was very corn focused.

The tour of Dupont Pioneer in the morning was absolutely wonderful. We learned about the origins of genetic engineering and the process of hybridization. We may also have heard about feeding the world maybe once or twice. On the tour, we got to talk to one of the genetic engineers, see the labs where they tested genetically engineered and hybrid varieties of corn, soybeans and other crop seeds and the greenhouses and fields where they grew them out.

Through the tour, we were able to learn more about genetically modified seeds than we had previously known. Despite the many opponents of GMOs who believe that they are not properly tested before they reach the market, and that they may be dangerous for consumption, genetically engineered crops actually go through very strenuous testing for quite a while before they are ever sold to the public, including testing by the EPA, USDA and FDA. According to Robert Paarlberg, author of “Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know,” “The FDA is the agency that reviews genetically engineered crops for food safety, and it views genetically engineered varieties of familiar foods as no less safe than conventional varieties of the same foods unless the engineering process has introduced a new or unfamiliar toxicant, nutrient or allergenic protein into the food.”

Our tour guide explained that the testing process worked like a funnel; originally, there are hundreds and thousands of genetically engineered seed ideas but after going over the lot under intense scrutiny any ideas that could have negative health effects, would not grow well, would produce unintended side effects in the crops, or fail a plethora of other tests are immediately scrapped and sent back to the drawing board. Clearly, seed companies do not wish to harm their customers, after all, dead or vengeful consumers do not buy products, no matter how good they may seem.

Today after dinner we went out to the barn to watch “Ocean Frontiers; The Dawn of A new Era in Ocean Stewardship” and receive input from both Denny Friest and Dean Lemke. Denny, was included in the documentary because he was one of the first Iowa farmers to start using significantly less nitrogen fertilizer in his fields. This discussion of the value of nitrogen and phosphorous to farmers as a fertilizer versus the detriment that the nitrogen and phosphorous cause downstream of the Mississippi river in the Gulf of Mexico led me to an interesting query.  In Des Moines and Iowa City, the city water which is taken from the Mississippi, is filtered to remove the dissolved nitrogen to prevent the health problems that over-consumption can causes, such as ‘blue baby,’ which can interfere with the oxygen-carrying ability of infants blood. Yet, despite our evident ability to remove dissolved nitrogen from water, we have elected to use wetlands and natural borders on croplands in order to naturally filter it, and insist on the use of less nitrogen fertilizer in the first place. Why though, are we doing this? These natural acres, man-made wetlands, and natural borders on cropland take up the precious fertile and expensive Iowa land so necessary for crop growth. As our population ever increases simultaneously with our appreciation for nature and our dislike of its destruction, surely we will be required to produce as many bushels of seed crops and as many lbs of meat as possible on as few acres as we have now. With this lack of available land for expansion, why are we giving cropland ‘back to nature,’ when we have so little of it to begin with? Why have we not placed these nitrogen filters sporadically throughout the Mississippi River? Or at least at the places where the tiles join the creeks? Is it because a cost efficient filtering unit has not been brought forward to individual farmers? Is it because states along the Mississippi don’t want to work together? No matter the reason, the solution seems simple and I hope that we can work towards fixing it, if even with the introduction of a smaller filtration unit produced by a university such as ours.

What was I expecting Iowa to be like? I had heard from my mother that it was a grid work of fields on the flattest land you’d ever see. HN had informed us that Garden City would be a tiny, farming town, miles away from any substantial businesses or populations. ‘Iowa in Your Pocket’ showed pictures of wind mills, barns, corn, silos and tractors, and the articles on moodle talked about the mass production of corn and soy beans. However, what did I really expect May in Garden City Iowa, to be like? Why, I expected it to be like Tolu, Kentucky in July. ‘Why?’ You might ask. ‘That would be silly, clearly it is much earlier in the season, and you are going to a different part of the country!’  Of Course, you would be right. May, in Garden City, Iowa, is not in any way reminiscent of the minuscule Kentucky town where I spent summer weeks as a child, visiting the farm of my late grandmother. While the farms in Tolu may grow corn and soy beans, the main production is cows, an animal I have seen very little of, apart from in the USDA Veterinary Labs pasture at Ames.

What has struck me most about Iowa during this first day, is how incredibly brown the landscape is. During an after-dinner talk in the barn, we learned that only a few famers had managed to lay down any seeds before the big snow last week. This lack of seedlings and plants immediately explains the lack of green across the land, but does not take away from the bleak lifeless feeling that it provides. Without plants growing, or animals grazing in the fields, Iowa appears as a brown, barren wasteland from horizon to horizon, broken only by graph-paper roads, silos and towering windmills, however, there is hope. Sprinkled around the house and in the pamphlet are pictures of the farm in its full green splendor. Knowing that the fields will soon be filled fast-growing and economy, if-not-life, sustaining crops is an encouragement. The dark brown soil of the plains is not barren, but full of nutrients. The fields are not lifeless, but fertile, and prepared for the exciting season ahead, and so am I. I cannot wait to learn everything I can through this trip.

Friday May 17^th

Today was a very busy day.  In the morning we went to the Iowa Pork Producers Association, and then we went to the Wallace Farm and had lunch at The Gathering Barn, before speaking with the chef and the CEO. After lunch, we headed out to the garden to help out and learn more about the actual practices of keeping an organic-farm to table production going.

At the Iowa Pork Producers Association I was not surprised to find that they were in support of gestation crates, however I was surprised as to the reason why. Keeping an animal in a small, enclosed place like the gestation crates will make it easier to manage and most likely make it gain weight faster. I thought that this would be the sole reason that the Pork Producers Association required to form their positive opinion of the crates, but I was wrong. They have absolutely no interest in treating the animals inhumanely and referenced a study that showed that when given the choice between living among other pigs or by themselves in the crates, which they could voluntarily enter or exit, the pigs most often chose the crates. Why? Surprisingly, pigs are quite nasty, and the crates create a safe place for the animals to be.

I found today to be very interesting, the food was very good, probably the very best lunch I have ever eaten, and included an absolutely delicious ham sandwich. I am always surprised when organic farms are not vegetarian or vegan. I’m not quite sure why, but I think that when people care enough about their diets to be concerned about the residual chemicals that may enter their bodies through the fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides that were applied to the plants before they are picked, they should care enough to not consume the unhealthy fats contained in animal meats and byproducts. Although I am neither vegan nor vegetarian, I do not care enough to eat exclusively organic either. It does strike me as strange though, that people who refuse to use nitrogen fertilizers and to eat corn-fed beef have no trouble eating ginger gelato or mayonnaise, neither of which are especially healthy. However, the delicious tastes of these foods are definitely a draw for people debating the value of local foods.

The farm to table movement is quite new and exciting in the culinary world. People are excited by the chance to eat locally grown, in season fruits and vegetables grown by people that they know and like. Even the decision to add a salad to your dinner can help support a local farmer and make a difference. Although the movement has been very trendy recently, and that may be a draw to some people, I believe that most people are excited by the ability to know the land and the people on which their food is grown. Every bite of an apple is sweeter if your close friend and neighbor has grown it. Not to mention, when people know and trust the farmers who grow their food, the can be more sure that the food has been grown safely and they are not being tricked into eating anything that they are not aware of. With local foods, what you see is what you get and this fosters community support and love.

Caroline Lepczyk

Thursday May 16th

Today we toured the corn ethanol plant, Lincolnway Energy, in Nevada Iowa. The plant used coal energy to turn a bushel of corn into 2.8 gallons of ethanol to be used as fuel. The resulting ethanol can provide 1.3 times as much energy as is required to create it. I was surprised at how simple the process of creating the ethanol was. With the proper enzymes, the process was fairly easy and straightforward. Like the high fructose corn syrup, it struck me as something that would be quite simple to create in a home.

More important than the proof of the ethanol, what we have been hearing a lot about recently is that the energy required to make ethanol from corn is much higher than the energy to make ethanol from sugar cane. Corn ethanol can only produce about 1.3 times as much energy as is required to create it, while sugar cane ethanol can produce 8 times as much energy as is required to create it. The issue then is, why do we not use sugar cane ethanol? The corn lobby teamed with its sugar counterpart to put a tariff on sugar cane ethanol, and so it protected the corn ethanol industry. Under intense pressure, Congress allowed that tariff to expire in December 2011.  We are still waiting to see the impact that lifting the tariff will have on the ethanol industry.  Lincolnway Energy seemed to be functioning quite well during our visit.  Perhaps in the future, the more environmentally and economically friendly sugar cane ethanol will be widely available in the United States, but for now it seems that we are stuck with corn ethanol and gasoline.

Farm 05/14/13

Today again, half of the group went to Annette Sweeney’s cattle farm and the other half went to the Friest’s hog barn. I was one of the students who went to the Friest’s hog barn. We left for the Friests later than the group that left for the Sweeneys, and spent the morning touring the hog barns, learning about the care of hogs, and artificially inseminating them.

On par with the safety precautions we had learned about with Professor Kevin Butt at Ellsworth Community College on Friday, we suited up in painters suits, breathing masks, and plastic booties to go into the hog barns. Although these barriers prevent us, the students, from coming into contact with any dangerous excretions, bacteria, or viruses that may come from the pigs, their main purpose is actually for the protection of the swine themselves. Although the pigs are big, sturdy animals, up to around 250 pounds at the time of slaughter, they get sick surprisingly easily. An illness can sweep through a hog barn and wipe out all of them with little trouble. This is also one of the reasons that hog barns from different farms are placed so far apart; so that the wind does not carry diseases from one barn to the next. In fact, when Scott, Dr. HN’s nephew, was planning on putting his hog barn in, the Friests asked that he move the building plan from a half mile from their barn to a location that was farther away. There is now a mile between the two barns, which prevents the pigs from sharing diseases between farms.

During our tour of the barns we learned that the Friests run a ‘farrow to finish’ farm, meaning that they breed the hogs and raise them from birth until they are sent to slaughter. To do this, there are different barns for each part of the project. We did not get to see a finishing barn, but we did see a farrowing barn, a wean barn, and the barn where the hogs are bred, and kept in gestation crates. In the farrowing barn we saw many tiny newborn piglets and even saw Mr. Friest both pull piglets right out of a sow, and castrate a little male piglet. Both sights were slightly traumatic, but the piglets didn’t seem to mind all that much, which was surprising. By far the strangest thing we did that day was artificially inseminate the hogs, it wasn’t as gross as I expected it to be, but it was still unpleasant.

One major controversy lately in the hog raising industry has been the use of gestation crates. These crates are metal, cage-like stalls, which keep the pigs separated from one another. Many animal advocates oppose these stalls because they are not large enough for the pig to turn around, only allowing it to move forward or back up in a very limited space. To someone with no knowledge of pigs, this may seem very cruel and indeed there has been a public outcry by many outside of the agriculture industry against the gestation crates in recent years. This outcry has lead some large restaurants chains to refuse to sell pork from hog farms using the gestation crates, because they are afraid of losing business if they continue to support farms that the public view as inhumane.

Although these gestation crates may seem cruel, when we were at the Iowa Pork Producers Association, we learned about a study that had proven that when given the choice between roaming free with other pigs, or laying alone in the stalls, most pigs chose the stalls. Why is that? Surprisingly pigs can be quite vicious to each other, they have been known to pick on each other sometimes until the weaker pig dies of stress. With this in mind, it is not surprising as to why both the Friests and many other hog farms use gestation crates. However, the refusal of restaurants to purchase these hogs has been devastating to many farmers who may not be able to afford to update their barns, or perhaps would not be able to afford the loss of pigs to stress if they did update. Although the restaurants are simply trying to stay in business, the outcry of the public is mostly the result of a lack of education, if it is good for both the farmers and the hogs, is it really so bad?