May 24th

This morning Reid and I ate breakfast with Denny Neubauer and his fellow farming friends at the local Zederbaum at 7:00 in the morning. These were men who had farmed in Radcliffe, Iowa probably since before I was born and their farms had most likely been in their families since before my parents were born. These were corn and soybean guys. I knew one of the first questions to be asked of me was what I planned to do with my life post-grad and I also knew that my answer would shock them. This was one of the first questions Tom, board member of Rural Electric and longtime farmer, asked me. I told him I wanted to eventually own and operate my own organic farm and almost immediately another gentleman at the table immediately asked me whether I’d grown up on a farm or if I had land. The answer to both of these questions is no but I understand why they are asked of me often. Most famers today come from a long line of farmers and an inheritance of land. And as the number of farmers continues to dwindle, beginning small farms are uncommon as well. Especially in Iowa.

I expected raised eyebrows at this girl who wanted to farm, but Denny, whom I didn’t know very well, did something unexpected. He interjected into the conversation and said something along the lines of, “This girl can work, I saw her carrying around 2 hundred-pound suitcase weights yesterday, messing around with the boys.” A couple guys laughed and this comment seemed to immediately give me some street cred at the table. It gave me room in the conversation to interject at points. When the subject of renewable energy, windmills and their occasional faultiness came up, I told them about a guy we’d talked to who worked on them. If lightning strikes within a mile, these windmill technicians ask no questions. They stop what they’re doing and hop in the elevator and get out of the windmill.

At the breakfast table, I don’t think my credibility came about because I could lift some heavy weights. I think it was the fact that Denny stepped in and vouched for me at the table, following a tradition among groups of humans that gather together for various reasons. Denny displayed some sort of respect for my ability to work and the other men at the table saw me as a somewhat common individual.

I think this phenomenon also goes back to the integrity in a hard day’s work. The pride that one (traditionally a man) gains from being strong enough to work the soil, farm the land, and produce a bounty from nature is still present at this table of an aging generation of farmers.

But it saddened me that their notions of farming are no longer relevant. Since coming to Iowa, I’ve learned that farming has become a capital-intensive field when it used to be a labor-intensive field. When these men began farming, you could work hard and make enough money to support your family. Now, GPS systems in tractors are more common than not. Planting better corn used to pay off but now that everyone plants with genetically modified seed, the playing field is leveled and it’s a matter of who can stay afloat.

Today we began with a community breakfast in New Providence. This breakfast is held on holidays and every third Monday and gives the surrounding area a chance to dine together. Donations are encouraged as a form of payment to fund the wonderful breakfast of omelets, pancakes, cocktail weenies, biscuits and gravy, sticky buns, orange juice, coffee, and toast. Members of the community ate together and, unlike us, seemed to know pretty much everyone in the room. Following breakfast, we popped into the oldest hardware store in Iowa and then set off for the Farm Services Agency.

The first woman we talked with was from the NRCS and she talked to us about farm programs that can give farmers subsidies for following environmentally friendly practices like protecting wetlands and promoting soil health through no till, crop rotation, cover crops, and nutrient management. The second woman spoke with us about rural development plans where farmers can be given grants to build high tunnels and solar arrays to help with efficiency on their farms. The next man talked to us about the Iowa State extension program which assists farmers with programs like 4-H youth development programs, hail information meeting and nutritional education programs. Programs like these help support farming communities and ultimately the farmers themselves. Lastly, we went upstairs to talk to one last woman about farm loans that can be provided through the FSA if a farmer has trouble getting a loan from other funders. Our trip to the FSA provided a wealth of information (and handouts) that educated us on how much the government and the state of Iowa supports farms.

We had lunch at an old-fashioned soda shop where everyone dined on sandwiches, phosphates and chocolate malts. Late in the afternoon, four of us participated in the milking and cheese making at Lost Lake Farm. This was a great experience for me because I’d never milked cows before and I was surprised at how clean the operation was. Cows are muddy creatures but Tom, the milker, made sure all the udders were clean and showed us the filtration process the milk goes through to ensure top quality in the find product. Kevin took us on a walk through of the property first to bring the cattle in and show us the different types of grasses and the rotation process the cows go through. They get fresh grass every 12 hours. AND THERE WAS A NEW CALF BORN TODAY. Kevin hadn’t been out in the fields since earlier that morning and was delighted at the early arrival of a new bull calf. While Tom milked, Kevin went up to his house to shower and have dinner. When he returned, we began the mozzarella making process which involves more steps and chemistry than I can begin to understand, but it involves cultures, large metal tanks, hot salty brine and lots and lots of stretching. Kevin handles 100% of his operation and spending the 6 hours with him that we did would’ve felt a lot longer if we were on our own. It was pretty amazing to see a product come directly out of the fields and into a consumable product that we will see this weekend at the Des Moines Farmers Market.

We had a pleasantly late start this morning, meeting for a breakfast of egg and ham sandwiches at about 10:20 am. HN held seminar at the table, discussing our visit with Kelvin Leibold at the NRCS office. He reminded us to look past the rough edges and recognize the importance of Kelvin’s discussion to understanding the economic goals and incentives of farmers and farm operations. In preparation for our visit with Monsanto we talked about our concerns and questions surrounding GMOs, relating them back to the section on Paarlberg on the limited international trade of GMOs as well as the idea that the staple GM crops (especially corn) contribute largely to processed foods filled with salt, fat and sugar that increase obesity and compromise human health. We wrapped up discussion with ideas on whether or not GM crops can feed with world (especially with new technology like golden rice with added beta carotene) and left for Monsanto in Ankeny just after twelve noon.

Director and lobbyist Dave Tierney welcomed us at Monsanto and introduced the goals and political activities of the corporation. He said that one of their biggest endeavors has been in working to pass preemption, or the regulation of farm inputs by state and federal government rather than control by local municipalities. His rationale for this was that regulatory decisions take years to pass by the USDA and EPA and that localities shouldn’t have the ability to uproot these decisions in a fraction of that timeframe. We also discussed the future of GMO labeling and Dave confirmed that legislation will require it in the coming years although it won’t have to be displayed directly on the package. Monsanto employees then took us on tours of the labs, from the chipping machines to the gene extraction robots to sequencing. Downstairs we were shown labs that tested for soy oil stability, corn fermentability and soil quality.

After visiting Monsanto we met with Matt Russell, Resilient Agriculture Coordinator, and Neil Hamilton, Director of the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University. Hamilton spoke with some of the prospective law school students in the group about law school and careers in environmental and agricultural law. Both Russell and Hamilton discussed with us the prospect of cap and trade schemes and carbon markets in agriculture and how difficult these markets are to kickstart. He also discussed market trends (including the increasing demand for cage free eggs and California’s boycott against Iowan caged eggs) and the future of the Farm Bill, which he was convinced wouldn’t be passed by its 2018 timeline.

Dinner at the Wallace house followed our conversations with Russell and Hamilton, and included farm-fresh vegetables from the Wallace Center of Iowa farm, lamb and vegetable meatballs, and rhubarb strawberry crisp with rhubarb ice cream for dessert. Iowa’s finest, just as Diane Weiland promised.

Easy and apparent it is, in our obstinate society, to apprehend farmers and producers for our environmental quandaries. Within a classroom setting, students are taught that increased nitrogen in our drinkable waters as well as gaseous nitrogen in our atmosphere are environmental calamities traced back to the poor conduct of rural farmers. Although such an hyperbole holds truth, I’m embarrassed to say, before today, I concurred with this tendentious argument. Yes, nitrogen runoff results from farmers’ failure to adopt voluntary conservation strategies that may foster the absorption of excess nitrogen into their soil rather than flow into nearby streams and rivers. However, unjustified it may be to consider their actions poor conduct. Is it really poor conduct to ignore planting cover crops that assume crop space on fields. Is it irrational for farmers to refuse transference to new strategies when their current efforts are profitable and have been adopted by their families for generations? I argue farmers can change their strategies and should be required to do so if failure to adopt voluntary conservation continues in the future. In a society where are natural resources may be at threat, we cannot merit our efforts on the basis of wants or what has been precedent in the past. We must falter to our needs, meaning significant changes in our actions is no longer a request. It’s a must.

However, we cannot allow for farmers to assume all the blame. Everyone one of us, including you, the reader, is responsible for nitrogen and, every one of us should be held accountable. Iowa State Representative, ,proposed her own solution to this emerging issue. She proffered that citizens should be required to pay a tax on the nitrogen they produce, in which everyone would pay for their cost on the environment and will provide incentives for environmental efficiency. There is no doubt, such a solution will be attacked by both sides of the coin, Democrats and Republicans, but; such a solution prevails over others that work only to benefit supporters of the USDA or the environmentalist in Iowa’s epic battle between the two. This battle contends because both sides believe they have the correct solutions which negatively propose significant costs on the other without any knowledge of the secondary consequences it may also cause on the other. It will take the minds of changing culture, an open society, in America to proffer solutions that may mend our broken environment. It will require a society that doesn’t see in black and white, one that can find the areas in which environmental goals and agricultural needs intersect.This will be the age of Millennials, the age of deliberative and divergent thinking, the age of solutions, the age of environmental peace.

May 26, 2017

One of the most common phrases that we’ve heard during our time in Iowa is that farmers here are “feeding the world.” They have to increase crop yields to “feed the world”, corn is “feeding the world”, and over half of the soybeans grown in Iowa are exported to “feed the world.”

For me, this raises a lot of questions specifically, “Are Iowa farmers feeding the world?’ and “Do Iowa farmers need to feed the world?” I think its a good question to ask, and its one that isn’t asked enough. Local farmers are stockpiling past years of corn, hoping that the price will increase, and there’s less than 100 days until this years corn is ready to harvest. To me, that speaks of massive overproduction.

Today, we met with David Tierney at Monsanto, and Dr. Neil Hamilton at Drake Law School. They had very different perspectives on agriculture, especially big agriculture in the US. Monsanto is continuously working to produce better seeds, that mature faster, are less susceptible to pests, and are pesticide resistant. While this endeavor may be a worthy goal, it also has created massive overproduction due to several good seasons in row. It seems strange, but farmers often have greater profits during bad seasons. Its basic supply and demand: less supply equals higher price.

One of the themes running through both presentations was the inability to predict the actions of the current administration. A Trump presidency is an unpredictable presidency, and many of his actions have created potential instability for the ag community. To feed the world, Iowa farmers need to export their products, and they rely on the export market to a great extent. President Trump’s proposed border wall and withdrawal from TPP have created international uncertainty, and key export markets for Iowa farmers are looking elsewhere (not good!).  In addition to this, Dr. Hamilton found it unlikely that the 2018 Farm Bill would come about on schedule, or possibly even at all, due to polarization within Congress and a host of other, higher priority issues facing the legislation, specifically healthcare and tax reform.

In conclusion, the state of ag and ag policy in the country is a bit of a wash, and we really don’t know where the train is going. It’s a great time to be alive and study politics!

Today was a pretty simple but back breaking at the same time. We woke up a little bit later at 8 which was nice to be able to sleep in, and then after breakfast we hit the road to go to the Wallace Country Farm. After about a two hour van ride we arrived and were treated to lunch, and were told about all the programing that the Farm does. They try to sponsor productive discussion with people from a variety of different backgrounds about different issues. All of the programs are down in typical midwestern fashion and they are all preceded by a meal. After the induction and a wonder lunch that included vegetables from the farm we got the chance to work with Mosa Shayan who is the farm manager. He first showed us around a bit of the 12 acre farm, and then put us hard to work weeding the potato beds. Since they run an organic farm, we had to clear all the weeds by hand using hoes, but there were some very tough thistle weeds that we had to pull out by hand. After some unfortunate stings by some thistle and a quick burst of rain we had cleared all the potato beds. With some goodbye’s we left the farm to travel back to our farm and dinner. Along the way though we ended up stopping at the birth place of John Wayne on the way back (we had HN’s insatiable need for coffee and Ethan’s justified obsession and good eyes for this little side adventure). We finally made it back to the farm and had another wonderful dinner made by Diane. Today was a less hectic day but still every bit enjoyable.

Monday, May 22, 2017

Today I was able to go with Sophie, Mariah, and Hagan to the Lost Lake Farm Dairy. It is the only dairy in Hardin county Iowa. Kevin and Renee Dietzel live with their two children on a dairy farm that they have built. Kevin has a herd of grass fed milking cows that he gets all his milk from to make the cheese. We first went to get the cows and bring them back to the milking parlor for milking. Kevin explained how a lot of his acreage actually used to be a lake that was drained in 1890 to be turned into working farmland. When we finally walked over to the cows a baby calf had actually just been born! It was so cute. We then took the task of actually getting the cows back to the milking parlor. We had to follow them all through endless mud and cow poop but we did eventually make it to the parlor where we hooked the cows up to milking machines.

After we milked the cows, our hard work was rewarded with the wonderful smells of the cheese making room. This room was full of wonderful smells. Every part of the cheese making process we were able to taste that stage of the cheese. We started with the raw cheese curds. We cut the cheese curds into smaller one inch squares. We then heated up water and poured the hot water into a large bowl with the squares of curds. This is where the process gets fun. We used heat protectant gloves to stretch the cheese and slowly mold it into a tight ball form. I myself could not actually ball the cheese into the proper shape. However, the rest of the group got the hang of it. Once we were done with making the mozzarella cheese balls Kevin used the vast amount of leftover cheese curds to make different flavored curds to package for the farmer’s market. Kevin also showed us his more expensive cheeses that he allows to mold in a special room.

Overall I was very impressed with the cheese making process. I never knew how many steps and how time consuming it was. I have a lot more respect for cheesemakers. It is not an easy job and is very demanding. However, If you can make the demand, It is worth your while

Today was a really fun day. First off we got to actually sleep in till 10, which was nice considering the pace we have been going on this trip. More importunely though and more fun we went to a field day sponsored buy Practical Farmers of Iowa. The field day was taking place at Blue Gate Farms, which was a small vegetable growing operation, and would focus on 2 wheeled tractors. At first I had no idea what a two wheeled tractor was, and after listening to an interview with the owner of Blue Gate Farms I was even more confused. Instead of doing the logical thing and looking up what a two wheeled tractor actually was, I decided to forget what technology was and wait the next hour in the van trying to figure out what these thing possibly could be. Like me I’ll leave you wondering while I talk about Blue Gate. It was started by a husband and wife team that had no experience farming, and they started with the vision to start a small organic vegetable farm. They currently have about 6 acres, and up until this last year they had been doing it all by hand (they literally used basic hand tools to farm 6 football fields of vegetables, thats some hard dedication). This last year they learned about and then started using two wheeled tractors.

A two wheeled tractor is best described in a picture (which there should be one somewhere on this page), but using words imagine a riding lawn mower that was cut in half, had handles attached, and can pull miniature versions of regular conventional farm implements. Up until today I had never new such a thing had existed, and initially I thought that some company must be getting rich selling these things two all the new small farmers starting out. I was of course wrong because two wheeled tractors were created in the early 1900s and the ones that are still around and used today are from the 40s and 50s, and there are few companies that actually still produce them today. These things were so cool because it gave small farm operators the equipment that conventional farmers had, just on a smaller scale. I thought all of this was ver cool because not only were these tractors helping small farmers be more efficient, these same farmers were discovering and restoring these lost tools.

I think this field day really showed a lot about the small farm and organic movements in America. It showed that the people that are starting these farms will work them with what ever tools that have to make them work, and they will also use whatever technology they can to help in this process. Blue Gate Farms really shows that when people have a dream they will make it work, the owners used only hand tools for something like 6 years. They also refurbished decades old technology to help them produce better quality products and more quantity of vegetables. 

5/21/17

This morning, we were graciously blessed to be able to sleep in while HN attended church with his family. We met at Morris’s house at around 10:45 in the morning and were responsible for making our own “brunch” instead of having Diane or Morris cook amazing food for us again. This brunch consisted of eggs made by Mariah, cereal, cream of wheat, and leftover dessert that has yet to be eaten because there are buckets of them still remaining. Once HN returned from church, we departed for our day at around 11:30. We were headed to a Practical Farmers of Iowa “Field Day” at Blue Gate Farm, so it was important that we made it to the farm on time so we didn’t miss any essential information.  We also did not stop for lunch since we ate our brunch late enough to hold us over until dinner.

The drive to Blue Gate Farm took about 2 hours, so it was a good time for us to catch up on our readings and blogs that we have yet to complete. We also listened to a podcast featuring Jill Beebout, the owner of the farm, who explained what the field day would consist of and what to expect upon arrival. It was also really exciting because she talked about all of the vegetables she is currently growing and her three alpacas in a field behind her house! We arrived at the farm a little before 2:00 pm and had a little bit of time to take a group photo in front of the “blue gate”. During the actual presentation of the two-wheel tractors, I found it very interesting to see just how specific farming tools can be in relation to different mowing and tilling types. There were also extra pieces of equipment that Jill would attach to her tractors to add new features to her machinery, which added even more confusion to my already confused mind on farm equipment. After we played around with the tractors for a bit, we were very thankful to receive cookies, a rhubarb granola dish, and crackers with a really tasty cheese that I unfortunately do not know the name of. Around 4:00 pm, the group was given a tour of the Blue Gate Farm, specifically the types of gardening that is conducted as well as the chickens and alpacas. Since I have never seen an alpaca before, I was a bit overwhelmed by its cuteness and photogenic capabilities! If it wasn’t so windy and cold, I would’ve loved to stay with the alpacas for the rest of the day, just to be able to watch them prance around in the field.

We left the Blue Gate Farm at about 4:30 pm and prepared for our 2-hour journey back to Radcliffe, Iowa. During the van ride, we mainly listening to music and discussed the types of pizzas that we wanted to order for tonight’s festivities. We ended up getting a variety of pizzas, no two being the same… I guess we are very specific when it comes to our pizza toppings. We arrived back at the Neubauer Farm at 6:30 and were all very eager to dig into our pizzas, since we hadn’t eaten much since brunch this morning. While we ate our pizza, we watched a movie called “Ocean Frontier”, which featured Denny Friest! I particularly enjoyed watching this movie since it involved a lot of ocean science, something that I have a deep passion for. Being able to connect different regions of the United States, such as Iowa’s agriculture and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts was very rewarding for me because it allowed me to understand how nitrate runoff can affect whales hundreds of miles away. Once the movie was over, Denny Friest and Dean Lemke answered the questions that were still remaining until around 9:30 pm. We then went our separate ways for the night to prepare for the busy day that we had ahead of us.

May 22

Food Politics, the book we’ve been reading by Robert Paarlberg, along with our first-hand experiences so far on FARM, have confirmed that the arguments surrounding agricultural practices and policies are highly contentious. Paarlberg tells us that the current dispute between commercial and small farming operations is rooted in the pull between demand for quantity and variety of food versus the demand for cultural foods. While he says it’s mostly the responsibility of a democratic governance system to find ways to appease both sides, for now the system has decided “not to use [its] tax and regulatory powers to force farming back toward a smaller, more local, more diverse, or less science-based model” (Paarlberg 2013). And the representatives from Natural Resources and Conservation Services (NRCS) and the Iowa State Extension modelled this idea. Although they are both from organizations that regard scientific research highly, the goals of agriculture as expressed by these two individuals was seemingly contradictory: conserving soil for sustainable agriculture in Iowa versus making the most money in your operation.

Nickie from NRCS told us that while NRCS is a governmental organization, the agency was created not for regulatory purposes, but to promote soil conservation and scientific research in US agriculture. She told us that the prospects of grain productivity in the state within the next century was grim if farm management continued as it is now. She also said that farmers are highly motivated by tradition and what their neighbors are doing and less motivated by the science that supports soil health, such as cover crops, no-till farming, and other practices. Her husband, for example, listens to his farmer buddies about farm practices more religiously than he listens to her, despite the surplus of hard data she has to support her case for soil-sparing behaviors.

Although NRCS and other government and non-governmental conservation programs offer excellent opportunities for achieving more sustainable farming, the behaviors that support commercial agriculture still seem to be winning. The primary advice that Kelvin from Iowa State Extension offered was to “follow the money,” apparently even if it means risking health and safety via exposure to hazardous agricultural chemicals. He reminded us that old, rich farmers receive the biggest subsidies, a testament to the government’s rewards for large and highly productive operations. This problem with this model is that agriculture becomes less of a tactic to ensure food security and more of a by-product of capitalism. Instead of rewarding this method and accepting the over nitrification, soil damage, and pollution that are often outputs in agriculture, supporting a healthy mix of food quantity, variety and culture should be our primary goal. This means reallocating funds to pro-environmental farm behaviors and pushing the envelope of “the political equilibrium of the moment” more toward common ground.