The last blog post. Feels kinda weird, but nice to start winding down a little bit. This is meant to be a overall experience posting summing up my feelings and really what I’ve learned and gained from this experience. First off, I got exactly what I hoped. I heard from farmers and ranchers of all varieties their opinions about agriculture, how to farm, research, farming processes, ethanol, and every food or farming based topic imaginable. Even a few non-agricultural topics like child care and global climate change. I also got to hear similar opinions from politicians, activists, farmer groups, and businesses involved in agriculture. The reason I wanted to hear all of this is because I’m a sustainability major which thrives on its interdisciplinary structure and critical thinking development. I wanted to learn more about agriculture and although I’m seeing both sides of agriculture in my major, I’m definitely seeing a bit more of one and seeing it as an outsider, suburban, environmentalist. Being here put me at the forefront with seeing our food production from the inside. I’ve learned some common misconceptions (such as corn being “used up” after going to the ethanol plant) about the food system and much more importantly for me the opinions of those involved with agriculture first hand; the people who provide us and the world with food. This course helped me realize how complicated farming is between the legislature, economics, logistics, media, and unknowables such as weather or market prices which means that lots of farmers guessing on the future. I’ve realized how advanced farming is, and for some reason one of the most surprising things for me is how accepting farmers are of differences. Very few farmers on the conventional or sustainable agriculture side said that everyone should do things their way or that they had argued with others. Most of them said they knew people and were friends with a number of those on the other side of this spectrum and that we need all types of food from organic to GMOs to grass fed so that people have as many options as they like. Don’t get me wrong, everyone still defended the value in their view and did believe they should continue in their method, but i suppose the two sides are often pitted against each other while farmers themselves rarely debate it as the media and even scientists often do.

This trip made me realize that there’s a lot of media attention on food, how it’s grown, it’s safety, and the environmental issues involved. Conventional agriculture can undoubtedly be better for the soil than organic agriculture depending on the organic farm and the conventional one. That’s something I would not have thought to say before this trip. Even without listening to the news and TV just overhearing some of the commonly held beliefs among friends at school has imprinted some ideas for me about food many of which have no scientific grounding. This trip has made me realize that some things need to be looked at through science even when it is talked about so much that you begin to think there was a scientist who said it. Not only that, but it has reinforced my belief that science needs to be translated to the public for it to be really useful, and even in that case science can’t make claims that all areas will experience the same results and will either have to test multiple areas to account for that or just acknowledge it. I feel like this trip has resurfaced some of the things which got me interested in sustainability science and the complexities within it while also giving me a considerable appreciation for what farmers do for us every day. I’ll probably think twice before believing things I hear without evidence, and I will be sure to go through some of my own ideas around agriculture to see whether they’re well founded or not, especially if I intend to speak about them.

Well, it’s the last day here at the farm in Iowa. No more long road trips.   Today was Practical Farmers of Iowa and the neighbors’ pig barn. We did the pig barn first and were lucky to even get in since the PED virus has been going around and contaminating hog barns. It’s a diarrhea virus that kills piglets, and when it hits, PEDv results in nearly 100% mortality, and it spreads fast. Luckily the neighbors let us in so we could see a hog building and how it operates. The pigs were more than content in their cages once they got the food, no squealing or bumping around like some things make it seem. He also doesn’t give them any antibiotics unless they’re sick, other than a probiotic-like feed to support complete digestion. We saw the few different barns he had for different stages of growth and the farrowing crates for the younger piglets to nurse while minimizing the risk of the sows laying on them (which happens in nature and with this system, it occurs less often). We even got to see two sows being artificially inseminated! We talked with the neighbor for quite a while about some of the questions that we have been blogging about and also about some issues within agriculture. One of the things continually coming up is science and how it can back things up or be ignored due to public opinion. There is little science saying GMOs aren’t safe, but the public fears them and calls them unsafe. This is true in a lot of situations and I feel that Liebman’s policy of going through journalists and public outreach with his research helps mitigate this situation, but people will always have ethics or opinions regardless of science and others will not see or disregard science for their personal beliefs. One thing that I though was very interesting to hear was his mistrust of research that made blanket statements for how to run land. He felt that it was difficult to believe research about how to do things when it might not apply as well to his particular land. Researchers may say that no-till is better and doesn’t harm yield, but no till is difficult on the neighbors’ property and when they farmed a portion of land as no-till they saw losses. The family themselves test trialed a number of different practices and will trust their data after a few years of trials, but I feel this shows one of the biggest difficulties with science, mainly environmental science. There are so many different factors from soil to weather and brand of fertilizer to the plant being used that affect how the system may perform that there is no way to make a blanket “this is best” statement. Science has been going more towards saying this is the best method for this area, but that’s something that has to continue and in the case of agriculture we need to focus on disseminating a number of methods and reasons or incentives to adopt them.

Secondly we went to Practical Farmers of Iowa and met with Liz Kolbe, a staff member who explained that the group is a grassroots organization focused on farmers. Surprisingly they seemed to meet some of the criteria for science that I just mentioned since they have farmers come up with the things to be researched, let farmers choose what they are willing to trial, and compensate them some amount for testing. The farmers themselves are the ones who realize that their results are individualistic. Some of the trials are done by so many farmers that they can get a statistically significant result, but this doesn’t always become the case. This group works with both vegetable gardeners and corn/soy farmers so it has a lot of resources to provide everyone. The big thing we talked about was pesticide drift when one conventional farmer sprays their field and causes some spray to contaminate an organic farmers crop. This puts the organic farmer out of some crop and causes them to lose their organic certification for three years, so it is a pretty significant financial hit. They also usually plow under the field that was sprayed since any herbicides will likely kill the plants there. Practical Farmers advises its members how to react and how to proactively keep this from happening. I thought it seemed like a really good organization and would like to get to know a lot more about them and similar groups, but could really consider working for a similar organization one day.

We actually had a fairly mild day today. We wandered around Iowa city which is a very liberal modern town, did some shopping, book viewing, etc. afterwards we visited at the home of the Honorable Mary Mascher, a Democratic member of the Iowa House of Representatives (not the representative in Washington) from Johnson County (Iowa City).Representative Mascher invited her colleague Representative Sally Stutsman, a local farmer, an environmental activist, and a Ph.D. student from University of Iowa, which we learned is Iowa’s liberal arts university, completely separate from Iowa State University. We talked about a lot! From population to affluence to Common Core (the controversial elementary and high school curriculum).  Jim pointed out that Iowa is the most changed landscape in the US with 1-5% of the original wetlands/prairie and over 60% of the land being planted in corn or soy. I heard about WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms)–an experience that people can sign up for to gain experience while working for a farmer, but being housed and fed so it’s more affordable. Lastly we talked a good bit about the precautionary principle. It’s the idea that you don’t act immediately on new science after testing, but wait to see and test multiple outlying effects and long term effects before using a new technology. It’s waiting much longer to ensure that the idea is proven safe before using it. Unfortunately, the US has a bad history with this, Europe is getting one. We only talked with regards to GMOs in which Europe is waiting, and the US is utilizing them, but many historical technologies go under this idea such as nuclear energy technology (we never thought about the waste or cost until it happened), DDT (we knew the plants would be fine, didn’t realize it would kill fish, birds, and possibly harm people long term), and multiple other ideas in which we had high expectations for a technology and preliminary tests that said they were safe. The only other thing we did today was read Paarlberg’s chapter on GMOs and food safety.

In Paralberg we read that although food sometimes causes illnesses, it’s far less than it used to be and still is in some places. Deaths from them are also incredibly low and more commonly associated with personal food preparation (e.g.,undercooked meat). That’s to be expected in a place as affluent as the US. Interestingly, both consumers and producers want stricter rules for safety. Producers favor stricter regulations because any outbreak causes costly recalls, hurts image, and results in a giant drop in sales of whatever was contaminated for some time afterwards, even if only one farm caused the issue. Paarlberg also discusses irradiation as a way to kill bacteria on food for market. Proponents say irradition makes the food safe, but as a chemist I’m just curious how it may affect compounds in the food since it’s high enough energy to potentially change some compounds. It also likely kills any beneficial bacteria in foods other than meat, since most meat bacteria to my knowledge is not beneficial. Otherwise I feel this is likely an exaggerated concern since radiation sounds scary… As a chemist I can say you’re exposed to dozens of forms of radiation every single day by the sun, radio waves to send stations to your car or tv, and microwaves in your favorite kitchen appliance. Hospitals have X-rays and MRIs, which both use radiation. It’s only some types that are dangerous and only if a high enough amount of exposure. Next he goes into GMOs explaining what they are and how they’re regulated. In the US they’re tested for any possible harm like any new food, also for allergens. Otherwise they’re considered as safe as anything else, but Europe has taken a tougher stand on GMOs, requiring food containing them to be labeled as such. This worried people about eating them, so the market basically ended for GMOs in Europe. Very few countries grow GMOs and almost all of them use it for animal feed crops or cotton only. It’s because people don’t like the idea of consuming GMOs even though there is currently science saying they’re safe. I personally feel that some traits are worth scrutiny (plants with built-in pesticides), others are worth the effort (vitamin fortified plants, such as Golden Rice) but we should aim for the same effect through hybridization. My main concern is that gene insertion could cause long term effects on health or more likely cause unintended changes to plant physiology (which could cause health or environmental damage in the long term). My teacher made the point that science backs GMOs just as science backs global climate change, but political parties ignore or mistrust the science that they don’t agree with (me included). I feel that it goes to a point my sustainability course made that people are increasingly exposed only to viewpoints with which they concur (TV commercials, news companies, radio channels, even webpages are all either liberal or conservative-oriented). This makes all of us feel the beliefs and evidence are skewed towards our side when really we’re just looking at one side. Honestly having the opportunity to see both sides on this trip has been a really useful experience to hear the arguments made by proponents and opponents of a host of issues, including GMOs.

The book itself seemed a bit on the pro-GMO side, but made a few claims that seemed off to me. Most of these are likely because I’ve only really been exposed heavily to one side of the argument. Really the only one I can claim was a non-truth was that GMOs don’t have terminator genes. Even when talking to someone who supported GMOs she claimed that seedless plants were GMOs. This is apparently a myth, since even a quick Google search to an .edu site explains it’s a breeding process that makes seedless grape varieties, although it can sometimes be done chemically instead. It’s not an example of gene insertion or a GMO. One can chemically cause a type of plant that will birth a seedless melon, or one can breed this same type of plant which just has twice the chromosomes (so breed this four-chromosome breed with a two-chromosome breed and the three- chromosome child is sterile). The site I saw even called it making a “mule” watermelon (mules are naturally sterile hybrids between donkeys and horses). I simply believe that both sides claim evidence, make counter claims, and are heavily biased in what they believe. It bothers me that either side might be using misinformation or bad science to back its claim, and it seems that both sides do (based mainly from this book). This is my reason for disliking research that is often funded by those who want to see a specific result.

We basically just spent most of the day in a car (6 hours). It may not have been fun for us, but I’m sure much less fun for the teacher driving us across Iowa. First we had a meeting with the crop insurance agent who actually insured the crops ont he farm on which we are staying at to understand how it all works. My understanding came to that they use your history to say how many bushels or corn or soy you can expect in an average year, and to determine the rate for the farmer’s premium. They then offer subsidized options for protection from yield losses compared to some percent of your historical norm (10 yrs back) or protection from market changes spring to fall (you get reimbursed for corn going down 2 dollars during the year). In addition to the federally subsidized crop insurance program, our presenter also spoke a bit about private insurance products that farmers purchase, namely hail and wind insurance.  Hail and wind insurance are regulated like other insurance products by the State of Iowa.  Hail and wind insurance products vary in price, bu the federal crop insurance does not–those prices are set by the federal government..

From there we took the three-hour drive to Decorah, Iowa where we visited Seed Savers. Exchange.  It’s basically a giant repository operation that collects, stores, trades, and sells thousands of old breeds of seeds for crops and flowers. They have:

lots of seeds. For example, our guide, Toby said that in the US there have been some 16,000 different varieties of apple. Seeds can be traded between members using their catalog and once their online catalog is up then folks can buy those that they have enough seeds of from almost anyone. Since seeds can’t be stored forever and growing the number of seeds makes it possible to start selling them, they grow out the vegetables from time to time. Right now they have over 900 apple varieties growing there in two orchards.  Many of the apple varieties in the orchard pictured below were apples cultivated before 1900.

They also have two nice gardens and a few heirloom chicken and cow breeds, with turkeys coming later.

I think seed savers was really cool and really like the idea of preserving the diverse mix of crops that have been developed over the years for future use in the ways they were intended. Some of these seeds were cultivated for taste, some were better acclimated to certain areas, others were pest or weed resistant, and then some were bred just to look cool (we heard Hereford pigs were bred just to look like Hereford cows). I find it really cool to have these varieties around and safely stored for the future, even if I personally believe that folks should try to get the breeds that work best in their area with normal breeding or buying instead of getting some of the foreign developed ones that they had (traditional German, Italian, and Mexican varieties as well as old America natives).

After that we went for another three hour car ride to Iowa city and are now happily at a little Marriott for the night. During this ride we also watched a movie about Fred Kirschenmann who is one of the earlier sustainable ag people who did it on a large scale (~3000 acres). I felt he was talking about sustainable ag vs industrial as if things had been proven and things are to my knowledge still more opinion than fact, even if I agree with what he’s doing. Most importantly is how he essentially demonized industrial ag, and I feel that doing so only causes a bigger divide whereas providing solid, quantitative evidence of the benefits of sustainable ag as well as the harms of industrial ag (if there are any, which I feel there are) will be convincing enough to slowly transition to a new kind of agriculture. The same applies for the majority of his soon to be published paper from soil to sustainability, which I read before bed. I believe it makes a lot of good points such as agriculture’s high dependence on limited resources like oil and potassium which will only be increasing in rarity and price (oil production was estimated to have peaked in the 70s by the way, although I’m not positive if it was confirmed to have). They provided some scientific backings, such as the work of Liebman at ISU who has been studying the benefits of sustainable ag practices like cover cropping. My only real issue is how uncompromising it is with changing industrial agriculture. Every other farmer we’ve seen in Iowa has been very reasonable and is happy to farm their way, and let others farm their own way and that’s true of sustainable and conventional farmers. I just feel that it’s something that will make his work more polarizing and the issue less compromising and positively viewed.

Things today were a bit early at 6, but it was a fun day. We went to a sustainable farm where the farmer, Tom Cory, raises grass-fed beef, chickens, goats, and lamb. The Corys didn’t seem to be organic or anything like that, but they didn’t feed soy meal like most people, and they didn’t grow GMOs on their small farms. They had a lot of out-of-the-box things that I found interesting, such as using wetland area near their pastures to serve as a well for their grazing animals (sheep and cattle). For their chickens, they had a mobile pen and egg barn so that they could graze, but still remain safe from predators. An interesting middle ground for cage free, since it was a decent size and had open sun and open ground access, but not completely open. Personally, they also didn’t believe in vaccinating (children or animals), and tried to live without processed foods. It became clear that they supported gut health and probiotics like fermented foods, which is something I knew nothing about and found a bit interesting. They also made some home remedies out of things like activated charcoal and essential oils as well as animal broth. They were really good people, and although their ideas are a bit out of the ordinary they seem to work for them and that’s their belief/choice. I can say that the vast majority of medicines are naturally based and charcoal is still used as a detox in hospitals so there is definitely some merit to the ideas.

It was the first farm with a system I had seen before with composting, mulching, and animal rotations through their grazing ground. Interestingly they pointed out that they wanted a blend of grasses for the animals so that both the area is more resilient, but also so the animals have a varied diet which means varying nutrients. Resilience comes from this system since the different grasses are each suited to different climates and nutrient loads, so even if either of those shift at least one of the grasses will still do well. The fact that the animals get that varied diet is something we haven’t heard yet, and I’ve thought about it myself before so I find merit in it for either grass-fed or feed stock animals (who get hay, DDGS, soymeal, and sometimes corn to have a similar effect). We also got to milk goats here which was fun, but by noon when we stopped working I think the majority of the group was a bit exhausted since we were helping out more than we have before and even though I was tired I was glad we were able to be a bit more hands on with the Cory family. Sadly this was also our first-hand experience with death on a farm as we tried to haul a weak sheep to the farm, so it could get a bit more attention and it actually died during the drive. It was apparently born with a bit of a respiratory issue and left to graze since it was initially doing better, but had recently been much weaker. Our professor said its a normal part of the farm, albeit an unpleasant one. Everything gets sick or dies occasionally and with the number of animals any livestock farmer has, some are going to die before being sold.

Next today was the ethanol plant which was very similar to the biodiesel one. The main difference other than the majority of the details in the process was that instead of starting with the byproduct of animal feed (the biodiesel plant used soy oil from making soymeal), the ethanol plant made animal feed as the byproduct of production along with things like corn oil and some CO2 (which they cooled to liquid, bottled, and sold instead of emitted). As a sustainability major I’ve had some issue with taking nutrients in the form of stalks and leaves to be made into fuel (cellulosic ethanol), but the guide said that there has been research to say how much can be removed without detriment to the soil (30%). I still feel it’s not the best use of resources seeing as how much goes into making the corn, but that’s my personal belief. One discussion my friends and I have had about ethanol is how inefficient it is with corn and how nonsensical it is to put so much energy and resources into a crop for fuel instead of using something less intensive like algae, kudzu, switchgrass, or something else quick growing and low maintenance (whereas corn requires lots of water, lots of spraying, lots of nutrients, and lots of attention). The person we toured with said that the main reason is that the two options for ethanol were to build for the most effective materials like sugar cane or switchgrass, or to build for what’s available which is corn. They can and sometimes do other grains with very little change to the equipment, and he said he believed cellulosic would slowly transition to other plants, but there’s no real market for the others so they don’t do it for the others yet. Interestingly I also learned that some plants make oils which are suitable for biodiesel like algae whereas others are high starch (which means high sugar possibilities, high alcohol possibilities) like switchgrass, and they can’t really be used vice versa easily. He also said biodiesel already is making progress towards these other fuel sources, and I’ve heard that other countries suited to better crop plants like Brazil with sugar cane do use these other sources for ethanol. I still prefer the possibilities with other types of renewable fuels which don’t rely on agricultural nutrients to any extent, such as http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/brainstuff/invention-hydrocarbon-fuels-produced-directly-from-solar-energy/ or hydrogen if we could improve the technology. Electric vehicles also have future potential assuming the resources needed to build them are able to meet the demand. These could be especially successful in conjunction with renewable ideas like https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways#description, http://crowdenergy.org/ocean-energy-press-release/, http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/wave-power-farm-sets-sail/, and the dozens of other renewable energy projects going on (a fellow sus major, and I recently discussed some of these via Facebook which is why I knew so many).

Well, since we’re a bit off with blogging I’m starting with yesterday this time. The only thing we did yesterday was to visit a fairly large (by my standards, small by Iowa standards) organic farm. Blue Gate Farm is a mom-and-pop type business that is ten years old. They grow multiple vegetables, asparagus, herbs, fruits, and berries plus they hunt for mushrooms and wild berries. On top of that, they pasture-raise chickens and two alpacas as well as house bees. As such they have a lot of variety in their CSA and also have several different products that they make for customers to use. Between syrups, honeys, jams, and wool that they sell on top of veggies, they’ve only had minor issues. Apparently legislation considers anything non-fruit or berry not jam so they can’t legally sell herb syrups anymore. This is a small annoyance due to regulatory changes, but they still offer a wide variety and have worked about their program in a very smart way. They have two high tunnels for plants as well as three plots of plants, all of which have similar plants just in case one plot fails. They actually relied on this strategy one year when a neighbor’s herbicide spraying blew into their garden, causing them to lose their all natural certification for three years and actually killing off a considerable portion of their crop! The two of them have explained how long it takes to build he soil to really produce a lot this way and how long it can be before you can create your market with people and a brand they trust. Jill and Sean, the farmers, started by renting a portion of family land and have relied on these 40 acres which includes pasture and alfalfa hay pasture that they sell, for their livelihood. They were incredibly tidy, healthy looking, and seemingly forward thinking. They planted fruit trees and asparagus without any immediate gain, but once they start producing they’ll continue for years and years. Their rotations and how they plant all seem to me as a way to prepare for the end season and future seasons just as much as getting the current one setup. They also show their appreciation to their customers with a big get together of food and friends once a year, and the neighbors are invited too! In 2013, 1300 people showed up at their farm for the event.  This is probably the most impressive organic garden we’ve seen yet, and checking out their Facebook page is definitely recommended!

Now then, today we went to the FSA (farm services agency) and it’s extended agencies, talked about an animal welfare farm called Niman Ranch, and learned about tiling in Iowa.

At FSA we talked about the rural development program, FSA, and the Iowa extension office. To be honest, the FSA talk went a good bit over my head. It was talk about policies around agriculture and how they support them financially and through different subsidy-like programs. They have a number of different loans, but most importantly from this talk was that it became that recent farm bills have changed the status quo considerably. Each change in the farm bill has caused a change for them in how they operate and what they have to do while also forcing them to explain these changes to the farmers. Rural development was self explanatory and offered many programs to support the growth and development of these areas. They even offered 40-year loans to some areas for low- income necessities like schools. The most interesting for me of the three was the extension office. They are an outreach of the land grant university of the state (NC State, Clemson, etc. mainly THE state school) and offer support, classes, and information on just about everything. Every state has at least one and they can do anything from offer information based on facts about how to garden, who to call for information on social security, or simpler things like sewing or removing stains! They seemed like a fact-based, research-backed info-center and that idea just seemed very intriguing to me, especially since I’d never heard of anyone using it!

Next in the day was hearing about Niman ranch, primarily its pork products. It was a good introduction to their antibiotic free, hormone free, cage free pork. Although it is pretty self explanatory, one thing we seemed to agree on as a group was that he seemed to focus more on marketing a product that people want and which is healthy without chemicals. They also had practices like tail cutting, which they avoided to keep the animals happy and pain free. Environment wasn’t something the company disregarded, but it didn’t seem to be its primary goal either (although they do achieve some benefits with their operation over conventional animal agriculture). I honestly just find it interesting to see so many different niche food markets with health-oriented, environment-oriented, animal-welfare oriented, and price oriented food (conventional). This isn’t to say that people fit into one of these and do nothing for the others, but most people seem to focus on or at least advertise one of these more than the other three. I think different people have different priorities and whether it is founded that the food being grown differently provides the benefit (i.e., are antibiotic free pigs necessarily healthier? Doesn’t this put the animals at some higher risk and thus trade animal welfare for health?). I just find it interesting that there isn’t just different brands of porkchop or carrots, but there’s all natural, organic, antibiotic free, free range, hormone free, cage free, etc. Its great to have food that prioritizes what you do, but it’s also confusing with so many labels and what their definitive benefits might be or in some cases what the labels even mean (ie. greenwashing is using an environmental label incorrectly for market benefit. Cage free can mean confined indoors with room, ranging openly, or not caged for only part of their life. Some labels have no regulation as to what they mean!).

Lastly we learned about tiling for drainage. Simply put, this is burying pipe with enough room between pipes for water to seep in, but not soil. This way the wetlands of Iowa (originally they’d were prairie-wetlands) can be useful to agriculture. Of course there are arguments about where you should direct the flow, whether you can connect your tile to a neighbors, etc. most of these issues were governmentally fixed by creates incentives to cooperate with neighbors to form drainage district groups and to enforce rules about following the natural waters flow. It’s interesting to know the iconic flatlands of Iowa would naturally have all been grassy marshland until people made it something useful for them though.

A lot happened today, even more so than usual. So much so that I don’t think I could talk in detail about everything that happened. Today we went to a brief Memorial Day service, read a chapter in Food Politics, gardened, and watched two separate movies, Symphony of  the Soil and Ocean Frontiers.

Memorial Day involved a short ceremony with the three gunshots and a reading of every veteran buried in Radcliffe cemetery. The people performing the ceremony were American Legion members and it was unfortunately clear that they were considerably older men than most of the people observing the ceremony, which constituted of all ages. Everyone seemed to be quiet during the ceremony and paid their respects with silence, but almost as soon as if ended people began chatting and went on with their day as it was. Although I found that aspect a bit odd, I did notice how this also gave the community a chance to gather and to speak easily with our professor, meeting with up to at least 4 friends himself.

The chapter we read for today was called the Politics of Obesity. Similar to the movie Fed Up, it looked at some of the things that have caused he obesity epidemic and which theories have merit. Firstly I noticed, corn syrup is not a cause. It works essentially the same in our bodies as sugar: it’s just a different sugar. Secondly the book quotes a scientific study saying the biggest contributors are processed meat, sugary drinks (Kool aid, all fruit juices, and soda), and potatoes (fries and chips mostly). Lastly a big issue is that nobody cooks or even eats at home anymore. Most people are looking for a quick meal since both parents were working, or a meal on the go so that they can just drive through on the way to work. These fast meals are not as nutritious and are highly processed to make you buy more, and that’s done by adding sweeteners, sodium, and/or fat. It’s not that they’re evil, it’s that this is business and these things make it taste better; if it tasted like garbage, you’d never buy it. Within this issue is how available fast food is. If you have a McDonald’s on every corner and only one supermarket within a mile you’re going to be going to Mcdonalds primarily (not to mention the excessive ads, especially those aimed at kids, which aren’t regulated like in other countries).

Movie number one was Symphony of the Soil, and focused heavily on the benefits of organic agriculture. More than just organic was the point that you had to work with the land to benefit the soil, growing the organic material while using it for food through natural processes. The richest soils are those with a continual birth and death of plant material to cause continual buildup of more soil (prairies are number 1, forests being number 2). We also learned about legumes and other trees that work with bacteria to absorb nitrogen (needed for growth) from the air and nutrients from the soil. It spoke about the benefits of biodynamic farming, which appeared to me to be almost a subset of organic which focused on natural cycles and minimal inputs (instead of organic pesticides and fertilizers). Farmers would compost or have animals produce manure, use leguminous cover crops, work with crop-animal rotations, inter plant (two-plus species in one row), etc to cause soil to improve even while producing food. Surprisingly they found that during drought these farms could out produce conventional one, and this is because these methods considerably improved water retention. I’d definitely recommend the movie for someone interested in these kinds of things, but would also recommend getting a video about the conventional farmers view. This also didn’t seem to be a primarily scientific movie, but more of an opinionated one (although with influential, intelligent, and PhD speakers) with great stories and animation. A great watch, but something to be taken a little cautiously and with the knowledge that there is another side that they don’t show fully that also needs to be addressed. I personally hope to use the practices that they talk about in the movie on my own property, but I also feel there needs to be more research and more definitive research about these benefits to guide large scale change.

Lastly we had the movie Ocean Frontiers along with Denny Friest, who is a neighbor to the Neubauer and Fiscus (Dalona) families. Denny was actually in the movie as a major farmer in the area and someone on the Board of the Iowa Soybean Association. The movie looked at the California coast, Massachusetts coast, Gulf Coast, Florida Keys, and Iowa farm systems and strategies in conservation. Oregon fishermen banded with scientists and researchers to protect their coral fishery and limit fishing voluntarily, even returning the catch of many pregnant fish. In the Keys, after an area was protected from commercial and recreational uses, there was an outcry from the groups that believed the conservation practice would harm their businesses.  But all of the stakeholders (fishermen, tourist industry, conservationists, etc. anyone with a stake in the corals future) met together and decided to portion out different areas of the coral for different activities so that everyone benefited. In the Port of Boston, whale populations were at risk from the sound and physical threat of large ships delivering goods to Boston Harbor. To balance the needs of the whales and the shipping industry, researchers developed a route for ships with fewer whales and a buoy system that listens for whales and warns on-comers to slow down to avoid being too loud or risk hitting one. Iowa farmers are doing research into no-till, lower fertilizer use, and buffer land practices on top of developing wetlands or prairie lands to improve the water leaving their area to head towards the gulf. Lastly, the gulf itself has created an alliance to get the people in the farming states whose water feeds into the Gulf of Mexico in touch with the conservationists, concerned fishermen, and other stakeholders in this big issue of the Gulf Dead Zone to reduce the amount of nitrogen flowing into the Mississippi and eventually into the Gulf of Mexico. I think that all of these show that there are room for improvements and balance the needs of industries affected and still benefit the environment. Most importantly I think that this shows a key tool to improving the environment is to listen and collaborate with those involved! All of these examples involved stakeholders working together to bring their interests to the table without governmental regulation. A huge complication of governmental regulation (especially when done by the federal government) is that it can only apply a single rule, but conservation, fishing, and farming are very different even within states. Developing local solutions with those who are on the ground and work in the industries that are affected are the most successful and should be looked to as models of how to continue this progress!

We had two big activities today with a trip to a beekeepers house in the middle of corn and soy fields and a trip to a no-till farmer to hear about his practice, conservation programs, and tiling. First we visited Mark Tintjer’s house, which he built. He had built the gazebo, the house, the porch, the lake, and the majority of his beekeeping equipment. He also went to a number of fairs to present his work with his bees, including beeswax art. Even more impressively he has ~42 hives after just reading a book about keeping and trying it with two hives.

RCategories

When we got there he introduced himself and told us about some basic bee information. We heard about varroa and tracheal mites, colony collapse disorder (CCD), and the problems that monocropping and insecticide use on farms causes for bees. Then we got to suit up and see several of his hives and help look for the queen bee (considerably longer, but not as wide as a male drone). Throughout this work he gave us even more information about general beekeeping, how far they travel for food, swarming, and dozens of facts about the way bees act. After transferring a few starter hives into bigger permanent ones he took us to his established colonies and let us see his technique to naturally control the varroa mite. There are three types of bees: queen, worker, and drone. The queen is biggest and lays all the eggs, the drones are only there to fertilize the queen which only occurs at the beginning of her life, and then all other bees are female worker bees. Apparently, the varroa mite has realized that the bigger drones take longer to mature so they are the preferred target for mites to lay their eggs on, and mites lay their eggs on the larvae. So Mark added a section of honeycombed sized for drones (the queen lays different eggs based on the size of the cell) to attract the mites. Before these are fully grown, but a little after they are laid, he will cut off this section with all the larva and newborn mites to feed to his birds. With this he keeps some of the mites from successfully breeding and in a chemical-free manner. In a Fear Factor-themed moment he also mentioned that people can eat the larva as a high protein snack, and almost all of us ate one of them. Unfortunately for Adam and me, they somehow taste mushroom like and both of us hate mushrooms, so it wasn’t the most pleasant  taste.. He next took us to his basement where he separates comb and honey, makes beeswax candles, and creates was art such as:

Lastly he and his wife provided us with some rhubarb pie and three different honeys to taste the difference. He was experienced, self taught, conversational, and very much a man who enjoyed the work! I’m certainly interested in bees and find learning about them incredibly fascinating so this talk for me, especially from someone who had learned the vast majority of it himself through experience, was a great unexpected addition to this trip. Mark even let us each come back with some of his mold candles shaped like bees for free! I think I second another farm May-Xers opinion that it’s kind of disappointing to hear that even working so many hives on top of a small garden Mark also has to work for a pasta company to make the money to support his family.

Next we went to Glen’s farm (not our Professor Glen), but Glen Hodnefield, who farms over 1000 acres, and who uses all no-till methods on this operation.. His beliefs were that no till does not hamper the plants much, soy not at all, but that the plant debris from the previous crop keeps the rain from taking as much soil and nutrients with it. He also suggested strip tilling which just pushes the debris to the side of planted rows while adding a single file of fertilizers. This method keeps the corn happy since it doesn’t grow as well when crowded with debris. Both methods also help build soil water retention and reduce fuel needs too (no run with a tiling machine). Lastly we learned about tiling and how pipes were dug underground to drain the wetland-prairie landscape initially so that the land could be farmed. Many of these systems surprisingly still work from the early 1900s or earlier!

It was a day with two different scales and different views on conservation, both from those who do things to help the environment. This put up the interesting idea that even within environmental oriented agriculturalists there are a lot of different opinions on what is good and what isn’t (Mark was not a fan of mono crops, pesticides and fertilizer). If anyone wants more info on the bees I’d recommend checking the website of the beekeepers association of your state or some local beekeepers.

Well today probably had some of the most information yet. We went to a fairly large 14ish acre organic practice farm that’s still in its first few years, then went to an informational about issues centered on Monsanto with a tour around some urban gardens, finally ending with the movie Fed Up. While today’s activities were varied, they were very much centered on the sustainable agriculture side in both the practice and politics.

Starting with Table Top Farm; it was a considerably different operation than Mosa’s farm yesterday. The couple who runs it started with another couple who left last year since farming on such a small scale, especially when reliant on a client and local base for revenue, takes time to become profitable. They’ve been working the area for only a few years starting in 2011 aiming to do an organic certified project and starting with direct sales, farmers markets, and a CSA. Since last season was when the other couple left they’ve since relied solely on the CSA as they’d already built up the client base and have also gotten things established on the farm a bit more. One of them does work off-farm for further income, but it sounded like with the farm, governmental support for their environmentally beneficial practices, and this extra income they were doing well. They were even trying some new ideas with sustainable agriculture I’d never heard of like using the heat from a compost pile (which hits over 150) to heat their greenhouse to some extent. I’ll admit that some of the area appeared like it needed some attention, but I’m also used to the 1/4 garden at Furman which is manicured to look presentable and act more as a showcase garden than a place to sell food some days. Hearing the cost of investment and the unexpected problem of finding manageable land parcels for sale (Iowa usually sells hundreds of acres at once since it’s an entire farm or portion of one) was very interesting and gave us all a much more business-life side of the organic garden discussion. They were also really nice and personable people who chatted with us about their projects and some of the things we’d mentioned we’ll be doing in a few days while we weeded with them.

Next was the “march” against Monsanto. For those of you who don’t know, Monsanto is the first or second largest seed producer/chemical company that is focused on conventional agriculture. They make GMOs, pesticides (roundup), herbicides, and I believe fertilizers, which makes the company very controversial. We came in expecting a big public protest, but got there and it was actually a small gathering with speakers and an urban garden tour. We listened in for a bit about the harm of roundup-grown crops remaining in the animals they’re fed to (including us) and about the problems that mono crops and insecticides cause for bees (a major pollinator without which we’d lose 1/3 our plants). Then we saw the urban garden in the area where people rented their own plots and it was the largest I’d seen by far, but one could clearly see who worked hard and had experience vs those who forget or don’t put as much effort into it.

Last was our visit to the theater to see the new movie Fed Up (definitely recommended for those interested in food and health). The movie looked at the causes and claims around obesity and the significant growth in the number of obese children. The documentary claimed the advertising of sugary products to children, added sugars in essentially all processed food (from Nature Valley to Ragu), and the emphasis of the media on this being a personal problem to be solved by more exercise and personal responsibility led to the problem. The last of these is the most infuriating since it diverts attention about the problem from food companies to people and makes it their personal problem. Many “healthy” foods have less fats or calories, but more sugar. Most of the sugar-free items I’ve seen have artificial sweeteners, which have their own health issues (I’ve at least read multiple articles linking aspartame to serious health issues). The video argued we shouldn’t blame individuals, the amount of time it would take to work off the sugars in our diets would make that an impossible option and the “health” food can often be equally sweet as the junk food. Most importantly for them was regulation to make junk food stop the constant ads to children about eating junk food. Politics are something which I don’t claim to understand, but something complex and difficult enough to frustrate me anytime I start thinking through them. Although I don’t think it’s definitive or concrete the fact that the Princeton work described here http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/princeton-scholar-demise-of-democracy-america-tpm-interview claims that the average voters don’t matter compared to the influence of the upper class and business groups is part of the politics that frustrate me (I’d also put the recent Supreme Court decision involving individual campaign funding in the aggravating politics section, too). The movie certainly exaggerated the political problems I believe, but lobbying does cause change to governmental decisions and money allows for it. I’d just end this brief on the movie with something Dr. H-N himself said, it’s government allowing people to get what they want, cheap, good tasting food. In a lot of ways this is the cause of the problem.

Today was a long trip in the car, but worth the effort. First we came to Des Moines where we saw the Capitol building up close and met with the Lieutenant Governor. It was pretty impressive to see some of the inner workings of the state government and to talk with such an influential woman, even if for only a brief time. From there we went to a new area of Iowa where the flatland becomes more hilly, and so the erosion is worse and the soil isn’t quite as rich. Here we went to the second property of the Wallace Centers of Iowa, the farmhouse in Adair County where Henry A. Wallace was born. We enjoyed lunch prepared by Chef Katie Routh, who also who prepared our dinner at the Wallace House in Des Moines on May 15th.  Then we heard about the Wallaces from Diane Weiland before learning about the garden from Mosa. The Wallace Center CSA employs organic practices (non-certified) and has a number of acres, but only has about 11 acres of land good for row crops. They also had about 4 acres of orchard trees with apples, apricots, pears, and peaches. The entire area to me looked like a scaled-up version of the Furman Farm with two or three greenhouses and otherwise familiar seeming practices. Personally I dislike that the organic standard (which is a nationally regulated label) and has so many detailed requirements that it forces organic producers to rely so heavily on its higher prices. Acquiring the standard requires prohibitive amounts of work, and without the clientele interested in paying the higher price here in this part of Iowa there is no motivation for the farm to certify itself.

Diane also made the point that organic standard originally focused on more than just an input standard; it was similar to the local food movement in knowing who produced the food and the standards used to grow/produce it. Bringing the connection of people to their farm eliminates the disconnect that many people have with their food now and that disconnect is a big cause for the lack of concern about what they buy. This applies to far more than food, but why would someone buy organic or even healthy food if all of it is just “from” the supermarket. It’s why there are people who believe only healthy food would be sold (there are those who feel McDonalds must be healthy or they wouldn’t be selling it) or that food doesn’t come from or affect anywhere beyond the supermarket. Making the connection would help people really understand what they’re choosing when buying food and to think more deeply about some of the issues around it (or at the very least relate to them more). I’ve read a bit about the original motivation of organic producers through sustainability, but didn’t expect that to be something discussed at the local gardens (i.e., does organic bananas meet most of these goals?).

Lastly we helped Mosa out a little bit by thinning a row of green beans which was planted a bit too thick. We saw the rest of the farm and called it a day.