My 21 days in Iowa have contained some of the most unique and enlightening days of my life. The old saying about not wanting to know how the sausage is made definitely applies to my time in Iowa. There are a lot of things I now know that will forever change my perception of where my food comes from and how its made. Now that I know, my whole understanding of the food industry is changed. For example, it will be a long, long time before I eat pork again. Although my views have changed, I am happy I have this knowledge. I feel empowered to know where my food comes from and the great meaning behind the little labels, we take for granted. Many of my preconceived notions of Iowa have been shattered–the state is not all one long flat piece of farm land. 

What I found to be the most significant take away from the trip is that pretty much everyone has a different opinion about how to fix agriculture in Iowa. The organic farmers don’t all have one unified solution. The conventional agriculture people don’t agree on one solution. Everyone has different research and life experiences that shape their opinions. Many of the views and data we heard directly contradicted other information we received. Some farmers thought health soil was the biggest concern, some thought the consolidation of small family farms as the most important issue, others thought water quality was of the highest importance, and others still saw the trade war with China as Iowa’s biggest problem. We heard an extremely wide variety of opinions and they were all unique. The one uniting aspect is that if something does not change soon, the agriculture business in Iowa will be in serious trouble. 

In my opinion, more regulations need to be put in place in the agriculture business. If farmers were going to do the right thing for water quality and soil health, they have had plenty of time to do it on their own. Because this has not happened, it is time to force their hand. We are at risk of losing one of America’s most valuable assets, its soil. We need to stop pushing fence row-to-to-fence-row farming and start focusing on implementing more practices such as no till, rotational crops, cover crops, and prairie strips. These changes need to be made now as climate change is only getting worse, and the soil health in Iowa is deteriorating. Family farms are just barely surviving in Iowa and creating higher incentives to switch to these practices will be a win-win for everyone, money for the family farm and improved soil, water and air health in Iowa. Despite all I know about Iowans distaste for government intervention, I deeply hope in the next couple years, big changes are made in the regulations for farming practices.

Something I mentioned when I reflected on my first 24 hours in Iowa still rings true. The community of the small towns. Throughout our stay in Iowa I was fortunate to meet a number of HN’s high school classmates as well as a variety of family members. I also met what seemed like the entire population of Morris’s family. Everywhere we went, whether it was in southern Iowa or the northern most tip, everyone was connected. They all had friends in common and knew many of the same people. For a state with a population of over three million, it seemed like everyone knew each other. I thought the community feeling was lovely. Farmers could see how other farmers handled their land and learn from each other, seeing what works and what doesn’t. Everyone is united by one important thing. They are all trying to make a living doing one of the hardest, and most dangerous, jobs out there. 

 On Tuesday the 28^th, I woke up to a beautiful view overlooking the Mississippi river. We could see Wisconsin sitting on just the other side. Lansing is unlike anywhere else we have been thus far. The land is made up of big rolling hills and valleys. This puts a serious dent in my preconceived notions about Iowa being a flat state. After a quick breakfast at our host’s home, we headed out to an Amish farm in Waukon, Iowa. It was interesting to hear about the differences between the Amish farm and the other farms we had visited. They have a dairy operation and were able to use a vacuum system to milk the cows to circumvent the need for electricity. I was happy to hear that their cows were grass fed and they used a rotational grazing system. My favorite part of the visit was hearing the banter about weather and crop yields between the Amish woman and our hosts, Mark and Marsha Kruse. Although they live very different lives, one big thing unites them. They are all trying to make a living off the land. This basic fact means they have more in common than they have in differences. 

Later in the day we visited the Welsh family farm. The Welsh Family Farm is one of many farms that are in Organic Valley. Their products are sold through Organic Valley Cooperative, and they adhere to all organic standards. They produced pigs, cattle, chickens, and some crops. I was impressed at the scale of their operation. The chicken barn was amazing. The size of the operation was incredible. The technology used was very impressive as well. The floor of the chicken barn was on a conveyer belt so that the floor would be replaced at regular intervals. This keeps the barn much more hygienic, disease free, and drastically helps with odor problems.

 It was really interesting to compare this organic farm to other farms we have seen, such as Grinnell Heritage. This farm was on a much larger scale and was producing the conventional products, just using different methods. 

On Tuesday we woke up in Iowa City and drove to the University of Iowa to meet Dr. Dave Cwiertny who is the Director at Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination at the University of Iowa. He spoke to us about water contamination in Iowa and how it effects public health. He touched on how manure use, and practices can have unhealthy affects that cause, air and water pollution. I loved visiting Iowa University. I don’t know what I was expecting exactly but I was really impressed by the campus and I loved the University. Iowa City was very trendy and fun. We were fortunate enough to have time before our next appointment and we got to independently explore the city for a little. The girls and I walked around popping into little boutiques and shops. We went in a book store and a retro comic shop. It was nice to bond with the other girls and explore the city a little bit. We decided on a place to eat and sat outside, as it was an uncharacteristically nice day that day, to enjoy our meal.

After eating we met back up at our glorious van to journey on to a nearby park to meet with Dr. Chris Jones, who is a research Engineer for the Iowa Institute Hydraulic Research. I missed the beginning of his talk as it took place on the other side of a grove of poison ivy of which I am incredibly allergic, but fortunately the rest of the discussion took place at nearby picnic table. I was interested and a little put off by some of his comments. He spoke positively about round-up and said in defense of round-up having been accused of causing cancer, “anything in excess can be bad for you.” He then went on to compare round up to peanut butter saying that too much peanut butter would also be bad for you. In my mind this argument makes zero sense. I was incredibly surprised that someone who researches water and health effects would have anything positive to say about round up. He even said that he believes overall, round up is a good tool. I also found him to be a bit cocky in his opinions. We have spoken to many people that are classified as experts in their own fields and many of them have had differing opinions that contradict each other. Of course, they each claim that they are right, and their research is right and everyone else is wrong. This makes it hard to know exactly what is true. I found Dr. Jones to be especially cocky in his opinions and his capacity to have the right answers. He also argued that increasing soil health is not always the right thing to do. This is an oxymoron. Improving the heath of soil is always a good thing. He argued that healthy soil has more nitrogen and farmers are so used to putting nitrogen on their fields because their soil does not have enough nitrogen. Therefore, is the soil being healthy and the farmers are spraying nitrogen, there will be way too much nitrogen. This argument seems kind of ridiculous to me. The farmers can just stop spraying nitrogen. This saves them money and effort. It seems like a win win. He also said that corn is at the top of the food chain in farming, like buying a corvette- I would argue it’s the easiest and most common crop is Iowa and would be more of the Toyota Camry of crops, everyone in Iowa is growing corn. Chestnut trees are much riskier with a higher investment and higher payout which seems much more like the corvette of farming.

On Saturday we went to meet Art Cullen. I was a little worried that the meeting would end up being disappointing as we spent the entire trip hyping up Art Cullen. Luckily, he lived up to the hype. Art Cullen is a Pulitzer prize winner and a writer for The Storm Lake Times. His editorials are frequently featured in the Washington Post. He is also the author of Storm Lake, the book that was assigned to us for this May Experience,. He was funny, candid, well-spoken and witty. In the beginning of our time with him he essentially summed up everything we had learned on the trip so far. He then answered a variety of questions that we asked him. He spoke about politics and the upcoming elections. Iowa is a very important state for candidates to win and the Iowa caucus is not too far away. This month alone many of the Democratic candidates have been traveling around Iowa trying to get Iowa voters. The number one issue on Iowa voters’ minds is water quality and agriculture regulations. With the current tariffs on soy beans, Iowa farmers want to hear how the candidates will make a difference for them. It was interesting to hear Art Cullen’s take as an Iowa native who grew up on a farm and is well versed in politics. I found his opinions to be very insightful and interesting and I absolutely loved chatting with him.

Sunday was very different than any other day of our trip so far. When we arrived back at Radcliffe, we began to set up for a special performance of Map of My Kingdom by poet laureate Mary Swander. After completing our duties of handing our programs and ushering, we sat down to enjoy the one-person performance. The show was about the transference of land from generation to generation and the various problems that accompany that transition. The play touched on family turmoil over having to decide who gets the farm. There were stories about family members killing each other or losing their livelihood over the decision of who gets the farm. I was really surprised that a lot of the play alluded to organic farming. There were mentions of leaving the earth better than you found it and protecting God’s creation. These comments seemed almost slipped in. As I was watching the play, I could not help glancing around at the people of Radcliffe. We have spent enough time here for me to notice that a large amount of the farmers here farm conventionally. This means that they do not use organic practices and they use GMOs and pesticides. I watched to see how they were reacting to the comments. There were some crossed arms and frowning but no overt reactions. After the show there was a talk back after where Mary Swander spoke a bit about the show and the message the show conveyed. She did not talk about the comments about organic farming. There was not even a slight mention of it. This was probably for the best because the farmers might have felt personally attacked.

Today we met with Connie Mutel. We traveled to Iowa City to meet her at the University of Iowa Hydraulics Lab. While her talk was extremely scientific (unfortunately a lot of technical science language goes in one ear and out the other), I was able to follow the majority of her talk. As her talk went on, I felt myself feeling more and more upset. The quick summary of her talk would be that the earth, specifically the prairie, used to be this otherworldly, magical place and humans have essentially ruined it and have dug our own graves. We have poisoned our own planet and if something is not done right now, we will reach a point we cannot return from. I found her talk to be more upsetting and sadder than even the gestation stalls. The idea that if something big doesn’t change, we will be in real danger is terrifying. I personally doubt people will be willing to give up their big pollution emitting trucks and their methane polluting cows. I can hardly imagine an America without fossil fuels. This is especially true because there are still so many people out there who don’t believe in climate change. I even know some of these people. If they don’t even believe climate change is happening, it is unlikely they will change their lives to stop it. Knowing this makes me feel helpless. How can I tell my kids one day that their parents and their grandparents’ generations did nothing to stop climate change and left later generations to fix our mistakes? I want my kids to look back at my generation and be thankful that we decided to make a change to save our planet. Before we can focus on women’s rights, immigration or foreign policy we need to address climate change because otherwise nothing matters.

         After meeting with her I reflected on my actions and my carbon footprint during my twenty years on earth. This made me think of my parents and how they live their lives. This then brought back memories from when I lived on a Coast Guard base in California. At the time my father was the commanding officer of the base. I was in elementary school at the time and a lot of those three years feels a bit hazy and kind of a blur, but I do have some really clear memories. One of these memories is when my father implemented a solar field on the base. The base was surrounded by pasture fields and farm country. Some of the land of the base was field areas that were rented out to local farmers to take care of. My dad decided to make one of these fields a solar field. I remember the day where the solar panels were officially implemented. My family accompanied my father to the figurative ‘ribbon cutting’ ceremony where I flipped the ceremonial switch that started the solar panels. I remember people clapping, and my father being proud, but I don’t think I understood at the time what any of it meant. Knowing what I know now, I look back at that moment with so much pride. My father did many wonderful things during his time as Commanding Officer of the Coast Guard TraCen Petaluma, but I am so proud that he used his three years to make a difference that will not only leave a legacy for the base in years to come but will actually make a difference for the future of our planet. While at the time I did not grasp the impact of his decisions, I can now look back and be so proud of the things he did. In an article from a reporter from this day there is a quote from my father “We want to be a good neighbor and a good steward,” said Captain Chris Hall , Commanding Officer of TRACEN Petaluma. “This is an area that is incredibly environmentally sensitive. It’s important to our neighbors, it’s important to our Congresswoman, and to be a good steward in the Coast Guard is important to us.” The article goes on to say “The agreement helps the Coast Guard save money, have less of an impact on the environment and decreases the demand for energy on the local community power grid. The project is estimated to save TRACEN Petaluma $1.5 million in energy costs over the life of the contract.” I am so proud of my father and how he has worked to promote a better future for me and my siblings.

The article I referenced: https://coastguard.dodlive.mil/2009/10/cg-green-tracen-petaluma-goes-solar/

On Wednesday we ventured into Wisconsin to visit Organic Valley. Organic Valley is a marketing co-op that was founded in 1988. One of the main goals of the co-op is to save family farms. Organic Valley is a leader in the development of organic standards. They have zero tolerance for antibiotic use. They pride themselves on representing the needs of farmers. The co-op is run by a board made up of farmers. Although the board plays an important role in the organization, the real power is in the hands of the members Every farmer in the organization has one vote no matter the size of their operation. They make sure every everyone has an equal say in how the co-op is run. Organic Valley is a large organization that makes up 13.8% of all certified organic farms.

I really loved Organic Valley. The office building had a really nice atmosphere. My first impression was that everyone was dressed very causally. This sounds like a weird thing to notice but I don’t think I have ever been to a place of work where I saw people wearing leggings or t-shirts with beer jokes on them. As we continued the tour, I was impressed at how the building incorporated sustainable practices. I also liked how they put the power in the hands of the people that know the business best, the farmers. Overall, I was very impressed with the organization.

Today we visited the heritage farm where the seed savers organization is housed. I had learned a bit about the seed savers and its mission in my sustainability class last year, but I still found that the visit was interesting and informative. When we first arrived, we headed up to the fields to do some weeding. After about two and a half hours weeding we headed back to our home away from home (our twelve-passenger van). Covered in many layers of sweat, mud, and grime we headed over to a local co-op for lunch and a tour. After we finished eating, we were met Nate who gave us a tour of the grocery store. The co-op focused heavily on giving back to their members (investors) and supplying local healthy foods. While this is a noble cause, I don’t think it is very sustainable because there are very little profits given to the actual store and workers if all revenue is being funneled back to the members. In order to have money to bay for the basic necessities for running the co-op, maintenance, workers, electrical bills etc., the price of the products is quite high. As more grocery stores start meeting the need of the consumer for healthy, local, organic food, people will no longer be willing to pay the outrageously high prices of co-ops like this one.

After our visit to the co-op, we hauled our smelly selves back to seed savers for a general tour of the organization. We were lucky enough to meet one of the founders of seed savers, Diane. I thought the idea of preserving organic, non-GMO seeds was very noble and worthwhile. As these seeds are made into hybrids and chemically altered, we lose the old seeds and their history. I appreciated the seed savers mission to record the stories of the seeds and how they were passed down from generation to generation as well as the happy memories that accompanied them. I did get the impression that the organization has a long way to go to make themselves more accessible and efficient. The catalogues of seeds and their histories were not recorded and are just now being collected. The workers at seed savers are working to sort through and catalogue them in a database. This is a long and grueling task. Additionally, their information is not currently available on an online database which I think would be very worthwhile. Their exchange yearbook would be much more impactful if it were available online. Many more people could access it and it would be more environmentally friendly. It seems like in the technologically advanced day we currently live in, the seed savers organization should make more of an effort to put their message online where is can reach a larger and younger audience.

After waking up the incredible hour of 9:30 Sunday morning in Coon Rapids, we departed for Shenandoah. On the way we stopped at the great Iowa attraction of the huge ceramic bull. It was slightly anticlimactic but still worth the five-minute pit stop. The rest of the day was spent touring the Liljedahl’s farm in Essex Iowa. We were connected with Dennis and Diane Liljedahl because they are distant relatives of Rob. We first chatted a bit with Dennis outside their home, and he filled us in on his life in the agriculture business. He has a hog operation as well as a whopping 2500 acres of farm land. He was gracious enough to allow us to tour his hog barns.

We first went into the sow barn where mom pigs were caged in next to their baby pigs (farrowing crates). This is so that the babies can feed from their moms but run a lower risk of being squished and killed by the sows which would be a problem if the sows weren’t held firmly in place by metal bars. Despite my understanding of that concept, I found the sow barn extremely upsetting. The sows had sores on their sides from the metal rubbing off their skin, and they were looked so unhappy and scared. As we walked down the aisle the little piglet’s climber over each other to get on the opposite side of the enclosure so that they could be as far away as possible from us. There was even a dead sow with its little piglet sadly nudging it as if to try and wake up their sleeping mom.

If I thought that barn was bad, the next was worse. The next barn was just long lines of pigs kept in tight confinements (gestation crates) that did not allow any movement other than lying down and standing back up. They could not turn around or hardly move at all. Many of the pigs were trying to use their snouts to open the cage. It was really hard to see. The conditions were not just inhumane, they were extremely unsanitary. The confinement has slates in the floor so that the feces can go down into a pit below. We had just learned that these manure pits are essentially cesspool pools of disease and harmful bacteria. Not to mention the smell which was just heinous. There are hardly words to describe the feeling in the pit of your stomach when you look into the eyes of a creature that lives such a dismal life. It’s safe to say it will be a little while before I eat pork again.

Today we went to Storm Lake and chatted with the chief of police, Mark Prosser. This brief interaction was by far the most interesting meeting we have had thus far on the trip, in my opinion. Chief Prosser talked about how immigration has affected Storm Lake and how the police force works with the community. Storm Lake is extremely diverse, unlike the rest of Iowa. If nothing else, we have been told time and time again that Iowa is made up of old white men. It’s interesting to think about how a city like Storm Lake fits into the greater Iowa population because it has such a different demography. It is hard to have proper representation in the government when Storm Lake is so different than the rest of Iowa. He talked about how the law enforcement agencies have to try and keep up with the immigrant population. For example, the police force has to try and have a translator for all of the different ethnic groups, and they have a hard time filling this need. I also thought it was interesting that the police force goes through cultural competency training. This is a program where they work with a professor from the University of Northern Iowa who specializes in world cultures. They track which groups are coming to Storm Lake and they work to become knowledgeable about that group, their language, and their customs, so that they can better protect and serve them.

I was happy that he touched on the misconception that immigrants bring higher crime rates with them. He passionately argued that this myth stems from the fact that fluxes of immigrants raises the population numbers and when a population size goes up, the amount of crime increases as well. People draw incorrect relationships between these two variables and conclude that immigrants equal more crime. I have long thought this incorrect conclusion that people made is extremely frustrating. Data can always be skewed to reveal certain results.

He also spoke about what he considers to be the great embarrassment of his career. In the early 90’s he helped plan and conduct a raid at a packing plant. He looks back on this with deep regret as it created additional distrust and fear in the community and most of the workers were released to await a court date and returned to work at Storm Lake anyways. He feels no real difference was made and only distrust and fear of law enforcement came out of the event. His mission has been to build trust and community relations in Storm Lake and considers this event to have been a major step back.

Additionally, he talked about how he was on an immigration task force with other police chiefs that focus on immigration issues. It just so happens that my father attended some of the conferences of this task force which I know because they had a meeting in Miami this past October, and my father attended it. This conference lined up with Furman’s fall break and my birthday, and I flew down to meet him in Miami. I actually have a sweatshirt from the conference. It makes the world seem so small to think in my suitcase outside in our twelve-passenger van, I have a sweatshirt from a conference this police chief from a small town in Iowa attended.

Chief Prosser appeared to be someone who was doing the most to make a difference and a positive change in his small position of power. He goes above and beyond to make Storm Lake a community people can feel accepted and at home in. He does what he can to promote a feeling of community while also making steps to interact with locals and meet them on their turf. I was extremely impressed at the lengths he has gone to improve the Storm Lake community and the lives of the people who live there.