Today, we participated in a variety of activities. We started off our day bright and early with a breakfast of hash browns, sausages, eggs, and peach bread. It was delicious, and the peach bread was made with real peaches. One thing that’s certain about this trip is that we are well fed!

Following breakfast, we traveled to Clarion to visit the Hagie Manufacturing plant. Hagie is very interesting: they produce largescale sprayers, typically for co-op and major operation usage. According to their website,

A few of Hagie Manufacturing’s industry firsts include the invention of the four-wheeled Hagie sprayer, front-mounted boom, and a high-clearance Nitrogen toolbar. As the inventor of the industry, we have a strong responsibility to continue to be the leader in application. We remain committed to providing innovative solutions to optimize our customer growth. As a result, today our customers are capable of performing various full season applications with STS attachments, making it the most versatile application machine on the market. (Hagie Manufacturing)

At Hagie, I was struck by the scale of the operation. During typical demand, they produce one sprayer a day, and production can be ramped up during peak season. I also was struck by the size of the equipment. Hagie sprayers are truly MASSIVE.

Following Hagie, we made a pit stop back at central command for a lunch of walking tacos. Before this, I had never had a walking taco, so I’ll explain them to our readers back home: typical fair food, they are a combinations of Doritos and Tacos. Taco fillings are added to bags of tacos, so one can walk and eat. They’re pretty good, and I highly recommend.

After lunch, we met with local farmer Glen Hodenfield to broaden our knowledge of low till farming, CRP and CSP programs, and to finally understand how tiling works. He has a cool cat too.

To culminate our activities (but not our eating), we were allowed to visit an Iowa Select hog barn, or caepho. This was a pretty cool experience that I think someone else will blog about, so I’m going to gloss over it. However, it was also an experience that focused our seminar discussion, including questions of ethics, responsibility and attitude. Is it right to confine hogs? How can farmers separate their emotions from business, especially when animals are being slaughtered? What level of animal is acceptable to consume? (To contextualize this debate, we had pork chops for dinner). As someone who grew up raising beef cattle, I find these issues challenging. I eat beef. I’ve also eaten beef from cows that I have raised, and they tasted pretty good. Additionally, my grandfather was a butcher who cut beef and deer meat. We made our own sausage, cube steak, and hamburgers frequently when I was a child. I always knew that in order to eat beef, cow x would be no longer. Poppie even played a terrible prank on me one time and convinced me I was eating dog (I definitely was NOT, he had made deer stew).

For some people, this ethical dilemma is hard to overcome: how does one eat the meat of an animal that they have raised? For me, it is a simple fact of life, but is also an issue worthy of discussion and rife with alternative viewpoints.

Following our time at the hog barn, we played with tractors with Denny and then ate a lovely supper of mixed vegetables, pork chops, potatoes, and rolls. Finally, we closed out our day by working on our blogs!

We met with Representative Mary Mascher and visited the museum of natural history and Old Capitol in Iowa City this past Saturday.

The museum of natural history has several permanent exhibits, including the Iowa Hall, William and Eleanor Hageboeck Hall of Birds, Biosphere Discovery Hub, Laysan Island Cyclorama, and Mammal Hall. Displays in the mammal hall include a giant panda, antelope, whales, and musk oxen. Specimens from “aardvark to zebra” are represented, many of them collected by Iowa faculty and students.

The Iowa hall focuses on Iowa’s cultural and geologic history:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VykDv6mLGts

Exhibits include the Devonian Coral Reef, Ice Age Giant Ground Sloth, and Great Oasis. It was interesting to see the impact that early peoples had upon the state, and to brush up on my history. Agriculture in Iowa truly began 1100 years ago, during the Great Oasis Period.

Great Oasis villages were a setting for great progress. Crops improved; corn, beans and squash were harvested in surplus; food-storing methods were improved; permanent houses were built; and social organization became more sophisticated. This is what made “village-based life possible.”

I really enjoyed visiting Old Capital. It was my favorite part of Iowa City. I especially enjoyed looking at the early development of governance Iowa, and the impact that this governance and social structure has had upon the sociological norms of the state. Iowa was admitted to the United States as a free state, and the social values of entrepreneurship, land stewardship, and independence continue to permeate the social structure of the state, especially in rural farming communities like the ones that we are spending most of our time in.

I find these values, and the impacts that they’ve had upon society very interesting. Iowa farmers are very independent, but they are also incredibly reliant upon the federal government. The farm bill is incredibly important to farmers, who rely on the yearly payments it provides, as well as subsidized crop insurance. This balance can be delicate. Nobody wants to have the federal government telling them what to do on their own land, but it is necessary to be successful.

9:00-10:00am: We finally got to sleep in and had a late breakfast

10:00am: We hopped in the van and began our two and a half hour journey to meet with State Representative Mary Mascher who represents a district in Iowa city.

2:00pm: Arrived at Mary Maschers house. We are met with excitement, and a tray of snacks. During this meeting we talked to Representative Mascher on a variety of issues from the Des Moines Water Works law suit, environmental protection legislation, and how the new Presidential administration has affected Iowa.

3:00pm: Leave for the University of Iowa and the heart of Iowa City.

3:30-5:00pm: Took a tour of Iowa’s old capitol and walked around the University of Iowa.

5:30-7:00pm: Travel to Amana Iowa where we ate at the Ox Yoke Inn. Before we ate we shopped around a lot of the cute stores in the town. At our dinner we had a family style meal where we would pass huge bowls of food around the table. We had lots of laughs and a waitress named Dawn that was willing to laugh along with us.

9:00pm: Stopped at Casesys Gas Station to refuel, use the restroom, and buy scratch off lottery tickets.

10:00pm: Arrive back at Morris Stole’s. We then all returned to our respective homes.

May 19

Some of our conversations with Liz Kolbe at Practical Farmers of Iowa began to push my understanding of environmental justice and forced me to revaluate my mental picture of the faces that fall victim to environmental justice issues. At Furman I took a course on community and environmental health, which allowed me to imagine environmental justice as a fight between the wealthy and the poor. Rich corporations and the consumers of industrial production benefit from production and release harmful externalities at the health and economic expense of the poor. Toxic technological trash is dumped from developed nations to scrapyards in developing regions, and factories are built in low-income areas where people don’t have the power to fight the poisonous plumes that fill their neighborhoods. It wasn’t the fault of the course that inspired my boxed-in, rich vs. poor understanding of environmental justice issues, but exposure to farm related issues has begun to push my partial perception a bit further.

Liz shared a case with us in which a resident of Iowa reported heavy pesticide applications during high winds that had been sprayed near a residential community and school. In this situation, residents may have more or less wealth than the farmer who got away with spraying the public trail. In this case and others, the “winners” were not the individuals or groups that maintained the upper hand because of wealth but because of political power and insufficient policy infrastructure. Liz told us about the need for reform in the process of reporting drift. The Pesticide Bureau believed that making reports more accessible would increase reports and take extra time to sort through. This lack of adequate and effective governance makes food producers the winners in their ability to behave with little regulation and repercussions for their misdemeanors, and leaves residents and other farmers victim to pollution, contamination and injustice.

The case of Des Moines Water Works vs. three Iowan drainage districts was an even more interesting challenge to my previously established understanding winners and losers in environmental justice issues. When I first heard of the lawsuit, it was easy to assume that a large corporation like Des Moines Water Works would have more power in wealth to win the case than the counties it was suing. Environmental attorney Josh Mandelbaum assured us otherwise. The state’s political power falls largely in the hands of farmers and, in this case, made it a hard (and ultimately unachievable) win for Des Moines. The outcome of the case leaves nitrogen release into the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers unregulated and other measures for Iowa water protection (e.g. buffers) voluntary. If the negative environmental impacts of agriculture remain unregulated in the state, Des Moines Water Works will not only acquire an even larger denitrification bill, but Des Moines residents and other down-stream dwellers face threats to their health. Both of our experts today inadvertently suggested a need improvements in regulation to shorten the environmental justice gap between all political, social, and economic groups in the state of Iowa.

When you turn your faucet on you get water. When you need water you have it. Water is such a simple, but necessary aspect to our lives and people usually rarely think about it. For some people though, water is their life. Today we met some people that water was their life because we went to the Des Moines water works, and this utility provides fresh drinking water to over 500,000 people. Now if you were a farmer or lived in the Des Moines area this would mean a lot more then the average person because the Des Moines Water Works recently filled a lawsuit against drainage districts in three counties that are in the water shed that provides water for them. Before I explain the lawsuit there are a few things to know. In Iowa a lot of farms use tiles that help remove water from the farmland, and then these tile systems are connected to a common outlet. These systems are governed and managed by drainage districts. Now these drainage are not regulated under the Clean Water Act, but the Des Moines water works believes that they should be because of the large amounts of nitrates that are being released by these drainage districts. These large amounts of nitrates makes the water works run expensive systems to remove nitrates, and this recently hit a tipping point for them. This caused a huge controversy, and many people took sides. After a federal judge issued summary judgment against the Water Waters, the utility’s Board decided not to pursue its lawsuit further because of political pressures.

Now our meeting there was very impressive because we got to meet with Bill Stowe, who is the head of the Des Moines Water Works. Not only did we get to learn all about how the city of Des Moines gets fresh water, but we got to hear form the person in charge that filled this highly controversial lawsuit. Now we had heard a lot about this lawsuit from farmers that obviously didn’t like it. When talking to Mr. Stowe we heard a different sort of story. He told us a story of how the farmers’ run off was causing extremely high levels of nitrates, and this was causing them to have to run expensive machinery. Now at first I was very much on the side of the Des Moines Water Works, but after talking with Mr. Stowe I was less so on its side. This was because to me it seemed that there was no reason for the lawsuit in the first place.

I didn’t see it as necessary because I am still not convinced that there is an actual problem for the Des Moines Water Works. The first thing is that it is not a problem for them to get the nitrates out of the water. They use a complex system that removes all the nitrates, and this is blended with other water to achieve the proper amounts of nitrates. Last year this system cost a total of 1.5 million dollars to run, which translates to 3 dollars per customer for last year. To me this does not seem like a large cost, so then there is the other idea that there doing it for the environmental benefits. I also didn’t agree with this one for a few reasons. The biggest one is that the nitrates that the plant removes are all just added back into the river down stream. The Des Moines water works has a permit to do this, but if you want to regulate the farmers for putting nitrates in the water, then I think that putting those same nitrates back in the water shows that you don’t really care about the water quality. The final problem with the lawsuit that I had is that the Water Works framed it as an use versus them mentality. They talked about it only in terms of the rural farmers and then the people that lived in the suburbs, and no mutual understanding to fix the problem. Obviously I think that there is a problem with the amount of nitrates in the water, but I disagree with how the Des Moines Water Works went about trying to fix it, and I disagree with its position from which they filled the lawsuit.

5/18/17

Bill Stowe, Director of the Des Moines Water Works stated, “We do not feed the world.” Many in Iowa would take issue with Stowe’s contention.  Iowa is the “Corn State,” but the type of corn that is grown is not directly edible by humans. The majority of the corn produced is converted into ethanol, which is then used as gasoline for cars and other modes of transportation. Another significant percentage of the corn crop is used as feed for farm animals such as chickens, cattle, and pigs. However contrarian the nature of Stowe’s quote, farm animals are considered food for humans. So, the corn that is grown in Iowa is indirectly consumed by humans. In my opinion, Iowa does feed the world, just not in the same sense that Bill Stowe was implying. Iowa’s corn is not sent to grocery stores and placed with sweet corn to be sold for eating, which was Stowe’s train of thought. However, if Iowa halted on the amount of corn that they currently produce, the United States, as well as other countries such as China would have a dramatic decrease in food that was available to humans.

A lot of pressure has been placed on Des Moines Water Works lately because of a history of disagreements between the utility and the Water Drainage Districts in three Northwestern Counties whose waters drain into the Raccoon River, one of two rivers that provide drinking water to the Des Moines region.  On one side of the argument, farmers believe that proper methods and procedures are being employed to manage the nutrients they are applying to their farm land; no further regulations are necessary.  From the Water Works’ point of view, farmers are polluting Des Moines’s water source with nitrates, creating hazardous water that is dangerous for consumption. I personally have difficulty in trying to decide which argument is the more compelling one. I believe that farmers should be able to choose how they manage their agriculture, but I also want a safer environment that involves fewer nitrates polluting waterways as well as the Gulf of Mexico. Somehow, a common ground must be met for any progress to be made in water quality.

To promote this common ground, this could mean establishing regulations on the amount of fertilizers farmers spray onto their crops. It could also provide farmers with a reimbursement if they do not produce the same quantity of yield after lowering the amount of fertilizer they use. However, the main problem I see is the fact that neither side is willing to adapt to changes. Kevin Butt, a professor at Ellsworth Community College, explained to us that the amount of fertilizer he sprays onto his crops is not one of the main factors in the pollution of water. At the same time, those working at Water Works believe that the majority of nitrates in Des Moines water is the direct result of fertilizer runoff from agriculture. Both sides feel very strongly towards their opinions, making this common ground establishment extremely difficult. As our adventure in Iowa continues, I hope to discover ways that farmers and political figures can work together to create means of protecting our environment as well as its people.

What an intriguing Thursday it was, our eighth day in Iowa, the one that brought both laughter and deliberation. As usual, the morning of the 18th began with a delightful breakfast prepared by Diane and her daughter Staci. This fine culinary aliment was just tasteful enough to stimulate our tiresome bodies that had been awaken at 6:00 AM. Although our morning was early, we embraced it with little quarrel, organized hastily into the van and traveled to our first event scheduled for 8:30 in Hubbard, Iowa. There, we were introduced to Ron Barkema, Vice President of Grain at Innovative Ag Services (IAS). As described by Ron, IAS is a full-service agricultural cooperative that sells commodities (notably corn and soybeans) and provide many several services to its members, including application of pesticides, grinding feed for cattle and pigs, and providing propane.  Since Ron’s focus was on grain, he mostly discussed his work in marketing grain.  He spent time discussing why corn and soybeans commanded a greater price at some of IAS’s location and lesser price at others.  Generally, it centered on the transportation costs and the markets for the commodity–in Iowa, corn is generally headed for an ethanol plant or for a facility that blends it into feed for chickens, pigs, or beef cattle Ron also showed us how he spends most of his day watching the price of commodities and what impact that had for the members of his team in terms of buying or selling grain. The morning that we visited him a corruption scandal in the Brazilian government had erupted, and it wasn’t clear what affect this might have on the sale of commodities, so the market was down.  He noted that to date there hadn’t been too much of a noticeable blowback from the Trump Administration’s policies regarding trade, which are generally not thought to be good for Iowa’s corn and soybean producers.

Following this event, we met at The Cafe in Ames at NOON with Jennie Smith. This gathering, I can, with full honestly, say was one of our best experiences in Iowa. From the moment Jennie sat at the table we knew this was going to be a great lunch. She was just about the most comical, extroverted, and lovable person we’ve met. Besides all the laughter, which was a lot, she provided much information on some of the issues concerning agriculture in Iowa. She discussed how everyone is responsible for the excess flows of nitrogen into our rivers, that which everyone should be held accountable for. She also talked extensively about her tomato farm operation and how she was successful by “looking at the market first, then choosing what to produce.”

After leaving Jennie, which none of us wanted to do, we traveled to Des Moines Water Works where we were introduced to Jen Terry and Bill Stowe. Jen Terry is an environmental lawyer for Water Works, an independent water utility, who worked with on Water Works lawsuit and is an old friend of HN. She gave us a tour of the facility, informing us of some of the issues concerning the Des Moines water quality and how the facility treats water to comply with state and federal regulations. She also introduced us to the company’s microbiologist who discussed the many methods she uses to test the water quality coming from the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers.  Des Moines depends on surface, not ground, water for its drinking water.  Bill Stowe furthered the tour by informing us that nitrogen was the main concern of the Des Moines water quality. The nitrogen that runs off from farmlands invades the city’s rivers and negatively affects water quality. For this reason Water Works filed a suit against a number of water drainage districts in Northwestern Iowa for the amount of nitrogen it dumped dumped into the Raccoon River and it sought to have these flows regulated under the Clean Water Act.  Following our meeting with Stowe, we dined at the Exile Brewing for supper with Jen at 5:30, which completed our day.

Iowa State STRIPS Project

What are STRIPS? If you watched the video that I linked above (watch it, it’s pretty cool!) you might know that STRIPS stands for Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairie Strips. STRIPS is a research project through Iowa State University, located at Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge that is investigating the usage of prairie strips in farmland conservation practice, specifically for row crops. The row crops typical in Iowa are corn and soybeans. The mission of the STRIPS project is to “strive to more fully understand the assembly, management, function, and value of prairie strips; to communicate our results to diverse audiences; and to assist others with the implementation of prairie strips on farm fields.”

We visited on of the STRIPS research plots located on the Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge and met with Dr. Schulte-Moore.

The vision of the STRIPS project is:

A future in which prairie strips are integrated with other agricultural conservation practices to foster the production of healthy food and sustainable fuel, and the protection and maintenance of clean water, resilient soils, and diverse and abundant wildlife and beneficial insects. We regard our project as an important way to make farming and environmental quality harmonious. (Iowa State University)

Dr. Schulte-Moore was very convincing. Her data met scientific standards and the results were compelling. According to the project, prairie strips work, and by converting farmland into prairie strips of as little as 10% was responsible for reducing erosion by 93%. Additionally, they reduce nitrogen run off by 84% and phosphorus run off by 90%.

Since the STRIPS researchers have 10 years of data from small plots on the Neal Smith Wildlife refuge, they are expanding their experiment to over 30 farms in the Midwest, with the majority located in Iowa. On approximately half of these farms, they are conducting bird counts and animal data, and on the rest they are conducting Nitrogen and erosion testing. Since they have only conducted this phase for two years, they have not published data from this stage yet.

One of the benefits of prairie strips is that they are cheaper than comparable conservation practices. For example, “financial analysis demonstrates that the cost per treated acre of prairie strips is highly affordable compared to many other conservation practices. Depending on opportunity costs, the cost per treated acre ranges from $24 to $35”. Additionally, farmers can apply for cost-sharing programs through the USDA.

One of the common themes of this course is the division between “conventional ag” and sustainable ag.” Because of this, I especially enjoyed the STRIPS project, as it was working to make conventional ag sustainable, at a lower price.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Today we went to the Frontier Co-op. Frontier buys and packages organic spices and seasonings. Upon our arrival we came across our tour guide named Patley Konvent. Patly was truly one of a kind. It was like Patly had been pulled right out of a hippie commune from the 1960s. She was very excited, extremely friendly, all about organic food, and totally just had that hippie vibe. The funny thing was that the group was honestly spending more time paying attention to Patly over paying attention to the tour. Regardless, by the end of our session at Frontier, we would come to learn so much about Frontier’s progressive modern workplace, along with its genuine care for each of its customers.

When we walked into Frontier, Patly took us to the office portion of the building. In the offices we got to actually meet the CEO of Frontier named Tony Bedard. Although a little startled (our tour guide, Patl\y, virtually yanked him out of his office), he still was a good sport and talked to us more about what Frontier does, why it prides itself on organic spices, and why it is so cool to work at Frontier. One of the great things about Frontier is that its employees are actually treated like human beings. For starters, subsidized childcare is provided in house! A state of the art daycare is on the bottom floor of the building. This allows employees to rest at ease knowing that their children are taken care of while the children know that their parents are very close if they really needed them. Frontier has a gym in the building to which all employees have access. Frontier also provides subsidized healthy prepared meals in its kitchen. Frontier prides itself on foster an enlightened work-life balance for its employees. The last really important aspect of working at Frontier is that overtime is not mandatory. This lets the employee know that Frontier values them, and they can decide if they have time for overtime when they are already on overtime with their family and kids.

After a tour with Patly of the packaging plant, our last stop before a delicious lunch in the Frontier cafeteria was their labs. In these labs, we got to talk about a very serious problem that Frontier is having to deal with: its GMO label. Many companies nowadays love to put NON-GMO on their food labels so buyers think that they are getting something healthy. Many consumers also even equate NON-GMO to mean it is an organic product. This simply isn’t the case. Organic products are not GMO by the USDA’s organic definition, but reverse is not true.  Much of the corn and soy crop around the world is GMO, and those corn and soy-based products find their way into our food.  Yet many food producers like to put NON-GMO on their products because it is a really easy standard for their food to make and have on their label and because of the non-GMO project’s label. This however hurts organic farmers and food in a way that consumers think NON-GMO is the same as organic. As Rabine pointed out, a lot of non-GMO products could have been produced with synthetic pesticides, herbicides, etc., and the farmers who produced the food product could also have been exploited.  So, Rabine was not a fan of the Non-GMO Project label as compared to the organic one.  I found this distinction between Non-GMO and organic food to be the most interesting one out of the whole tour. The moral of the story is that when a food label says NON-GMO it is not something really special or healthy. Overall I was absolutely blown away by not only Frontiers business practices toward its employers but its dedication to organic products grown and sold around the world.

May 17

We woke for the usual slew of eggs, pancakes, sausage, and pineapple this morning at 7:45. HN herded us to the van just before 9:00 am for our trip to Frontier Cooperative in Norway.  On the way we learned that, like any co-op, Frontier’s costumers are share-holders in the company and hold the right to vote and benefit from company profits. They offer high transparency on their webpage, citing specific examples of community engagement in the areas from which they source their products, including installing wells in Madagascar where they source their vanilla, and establishing homes and schools in Vietnam where they acquire the cinnamon they sell, among several other projects. We were greeted at the Frontier headquarters by the animated, personable Patly Konvent. Jake, the purchasing manager, gave us a presentation on the sustainability initiatives of the company, including their long-term vision of economic and environmental benefits their products promote. We met Tony, the CEO, and Ravine, the Quality Assessment and Quality Control coordinator. Patly took us on a tour through the childcare center and the gym facilities, both of which are offered to their employees at a heavily discounted rate. Afterward Ravine took us back to the analytical lab where organoleptic testing was performed, evaluating product color, size, and aroma. He said that they use microscopy to detect adulteration in the products (i.e. the addition of materials other than the pure substance). Ravine also addressed the interesting fact that Frontier resisted the Non-GMO Project label for a while because GM technology has not been developed for the production of many spices and herbs. After a tour through the packaging plant we had lunch (or dinner, depending on where you’re reading this from) at the employee rate and departed for the Neil Smith Wildlife Refuge at around 1:00 pm.

Just outside of Norway we passed through Amana, a collection of utopian communities known for their woodworking and refrigeration plants. HN pointed out that it was a much older and hillier part of Iowa. We arrived at the nature center in Prairie City just before 3:00 pm and were welcomed by Dr. Schulte-Moore, the cofounder and co-leader of STRIPS, or Science-based Trials of Row-crops Integrated with Prairie Strips, an Iowa State faculty member in the Natural Resource Ecology and Management department. She took us to the reserve research plots on which they had planted prairie strips among no-till soybean-on-corn fields. In the first plot, a soil collecting channel was situated at the bottom of a cultivated slope in a watershed. She pointed out the abundance of erosion along the watershed and the large accumulation of soil in the channel and that which they had shoveled out. In the second plot, the channel was situated below a restored prairie and showed much less erosion. Dr. Schulte-Moore added that she has the privilege of working with a variety of experts on the project to understand the entire system, including ecosystem functions, potential economic returns, and biogeochemical flows.

At around 4:30 pm we headed back to Radcliffe in a thunderstorm, had lasagna for supper, then went to the barn to ruminate on the day’s events.