Transparency is essential for farmers to gain the trust of the public. Unfortunately recent policies passed by the Iowa Supreme Court have made it very difficult for farmers to complete this task. We were able to meet Mr. Roger McEowen – an agricultural lawyer – who explained the limitations that farmers are now facing.

In Salle v. Stewart, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that farmers can be found liable over any injuries that occur to an individual during an educational tour. The impending fear farm owners will face is whether they can afford financially to let the public onto their farms to see the farmer’s operations. How are farmers going to be able to fortify a trust between the consumer and their farm if the public is kept out?

Since the numbers of educational tours will diminish in Iowa, citizens will become less informed about farming and agriculture. Iowa is known for its hog farms – an already controversial topic in agriculture – and misinformed citizens will chime in on an already overheated controversy. The only way to truly understand what occurs in these hog barns is by seeing them in person; then a person can form an opinion. With citizens being unable to gain the educational experiences I have had, advocacy groups will continue to gain momentum. People will only see a piece of the puzzle, rather than the whole puzzle.

Mr. McEowen was deeply displeased with the outcome in this recent case, and he believes this could cause for a deeper misunderstanding of a farmer’s work. With advocacy groups able to manipulate and cherry-pick the statistics they want, farmers will be unable to counter these attacks. Farmers would have no longer been able to offer a hay ride through their fields, fearing a person could turn around and sue the farmer for opening their farm out of the goodness of their heart. Luckily a last minute remedy provided by the Iowa Supreme Court appears to have fixed the potential problems arising from this case. The Iowa legislature passed a revision to “assure” farmers they should not fear the public.

I can not blame farmers for having a fear of being sued moving forward, as people are often looking for a quick buck. While I am sure Salle was happy with the outcome of this case, I have only one question. Could this situation have been resolved before going to court? That question could have been the difference between a consumer understanding agriculture or being unaware of what occurs on these farms.

Caroline Lepczyk

Tuesday, May 28^th

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

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

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

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

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

Today was a very cool experience that I could not have witnessed anywhere else but in Iowa. Caroline, Beau and I visited the neighbor’s hog farm. While there, we artificially inseminated hogs, walked around the several houses involved in the farrow-to-finish operation, and learned how the farm worked. Our host was very nice, and he showed us what the animals eat and how important diet is for producing a healthy pig. When walking down one of the aisles in the gestation barn, the farmer looked at a pig, said he needed to check something, and the next thing I knew he stuck his hand into the pig and pulled out three baby pigs. I got to witness the magic of birth! Before this experience, my pig visual was from the kid’s movie Babe with the cute little pig. These pigs were not cute, and the mommas were not so little. In addition, the pigs were housed in the ever-controversial gestational crates. They were small – no turn around space. However, it did give the pigs their own safe space. It is very easy to see why so many people are against the crates. But, considering how many pigs there are, the crates are functional because it gives the pigs their own safe space. Of course pigs need to be happy, but when dealing with so many animals, functionality plays a very large part as well. Today was definitely a real-world experience in hog production, especially inseminating the hogs. I am glad and thankful that the farmer let us experience his farm; I could not be a hog producer!

Afterwards, I had my very first tractor ride! Denny let me ride in his tractor spraying pesticides for around an hour. Honestly, I have no idea how he knew where to spray – all the rows looked the same to me. With so much high-tech equipment available, it was cool to see Denny and his refined art of farming. I questioned him if new farmers will not know how to drive the tractors because of all of the new GPS automated driving. His response was that every farmer, no matter how sophisticated the equipment, should know how to work it. Alarmingly, the average age of the Iowa farmer is 56-59 years old. When this generation stops farming, will all of their farming knowledge just disappear? I hope the art of farming does not die out with the aging farmers. 

Today was hot. Today was really hot. I started the morning out at the Friest Farm about a mile down the road. After spending most of the day with cattle yesterday, touring the hog operation at the Friest’s house was very interesting. Personally, although I have nothing against pigs or pig operations, I would much rather prefer to be around cattle and cattle operations. There’s just something completely distinct about hog manure in comparison to cow manure, and I don’t like it that much. I’ve always known how important manure is as a fertilizer—my grandpa taught me this from a very early age when I would help him out in his garden. However, I was never aware how profitable manure really is. It’s a common expression that manure is the “smell of money” in Iowa. Why is this? Iowa has become famous in recent years for their CAFOs, or confined animal feeding operations. These CAFOs produce massive amount of manure, which is then placed upon the fields as a fertilizer. This manure helps lower the inputs on a corn crop by providing the essential nitrogen and other nutrients that are needed for massive production of corn. Easterners and city slickers such as myself don’t understand this fact. How can someone make money off poop? The poop cycle is extremely interesting as well. It starts with the pigs (or cattle), then is excavated and spread on the fields, which in turn grow the crops, which end up either back in the hogs (or cattle) or in the food or drinks we consume. Scott Neubauer has gone as far as to purchase a hog barn owned by Iowa Select for the sole purpose of using the manure to fertilize his fields. He runs a CAFO, which is essentially a finishing operation for hogs. Although he makes money off of his pigs, he’s more concerned with what comes out the other end. So, poop is of vital importance in Iowa. Denny Friest asserted this point with passion as I was riding around in his planter this afternoon. While riding in his tractor, I got to experience the precision agriculture Mr. Kevin Butt talked about so much at Ellsworth. Denny, who is really a pioneer in the technological agriculture industry, does things much differently than other family farms. His GPS systems in his tractors quite literally cost a fortune, and today I saw why. Whilst riding in Denny’s tractor planting GMO feed corn, we discussed many things. However, after riding around in Denny’s tractor I started to realize why environmentalists could believe that this new form of agriculture is so dangerous to the environment. In my three-hour tractor ride, we probably used at least a hundred gallons of gasoline, and planted thousands of plants treated with genetically modified traits. However, I believe Mr. Friest would respond to these environmentalist issues by stating that he is just trying to make a living; that he is giving the world what they want. Here in Iowa, people and companies want corn and soybeans! Mr. Friest does a lot of farmer representation, as he has headed or currently heads up various committees that have influence in farm policy. He is completely an agribusiness representative; and one who represents perfectly the environment he lives in.

Caroline Lepczyk

Friday, May 24^th

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

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

Public image is on the forefront of meat industries and associations agenda. Realizing that the image portrayed by PETA and other advocacy groups is off-putting, farm associations are trying to find a way to tell their side of the story. Today at the Iowa Pork Producers we heard about one of the most controversial subjects in farming: whether the use of gestation crates in hog barns are humane.

By using humane and a type of animal in the same sentence one thought came to my mind, animals are not humans. I am against a society that is cruel towards animals but to treat an animal as if they were human is foolish. PETA will argue whether I would like it if I was stuck in a crate today. My response is no but I also do not enjoy rolling around in my own feces. Animals and humans are different and must be treated differently, something many people will disagree with me on.

While the pork industry would enjoy my stance on animal rights, this stance has just begun to develop. Animal activists are more effective in advocating their position to the public, causing the public to make assumptions about the “evil” food industries and their practices. Only “evil” industries would want to kill Wilbur – an adorable pig in Charlotte’s Web – and sell his remains to children to eat. By slanting the image of animal industries, animal activists are able to foster a relationship between a man and his meal. Food industries are unsuccessfully countering these attacks and can only watch as PETA begins to slowly shift the views of Americans in their favor.

Stirring the pot just enough, animal activists are having an effect on how farmers treat their livestock. By raising “awareness” of how “inhumane” industries are towards their livestock and linking animal abuse to food safety, animal activists have shifted the way farmers process food. In fear of losing business, slaughterhouses are compelled to treat their ANIMALS HUMANELY.

Food industries must become transparent to neutralize the attacks animal activists present, otherwise consumers will continue to misunderstand the activity that occurs in farm industries. While artificially inseminating pigs, I had the chance to view and form my own opinion regarding gestation crates. This opportunity is rare, but should not be if farming industries want to take the next step in neutralizing PETA’s attempts to derail them. There has been progress made by farming industries. Hotlines have been established for consumers to call in any suspected animal cruelty and hog farmers have to attend multiple seminars to be certified in hog farming. While these steps should be enough to warrant a “good job” from the public, the public is unable to recognize this because of the confidentiality that surrounds farming. Will the farming industry do enough to neutralize the effects that animal activists have on our society today? That question is one I do not have an answer to.

Caroline Lepczyk

Thursday May 23^rd

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

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

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

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

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

Today, Monday, May 13, was a fantastic hands-on day! Beau, Caroline and I were at a neighbor’s cattle farm assisting with rounding up cows to inject them with medicine for health and fertilization reasons. It was fascinating to see how the farmers and their assistants handled the cows: very calm and generally no contact. From my perspective, cows are thought of as docile, dumb creatures – not the case for cow number 1018. She has a reputation for being quite ornery and mean, which will lead to her soon being sold to protect everyone who works on the farm. I never thought of a cow as mean-spirited or dangerous, only as happy, like the Happy Cows’ commercial for California milk.  I wanted to come to Iowa to broaden my experience and my perspective. Readings and movies can only teach so much – actually working and learning from the people who do the work is the best way to form one’s own opinion and understanding.  I have learned that food and agriculture policies are incredibly contentious! Lots of people with lots of opinions, and all of them think they are right.  They all hold a golden key that unlocks a door to truth.  But my trip to Iowa has demonstrated that it is important to listen to all of these people and to work side-by-side with folks of all stripes so that I can form my own opinion, my own synthesis, after weighing the evidence that each side (and those in-between) have presented.

After the cows received their shots, local farmers in the area helped truck the farmer’s 75 cows to 170 acres of luscious grass pasture on which the cows grazed. Their beautiful pasture looks like an edited Instagram photo found on the cover of magazines. Afterwards, we helped another farmer round up in cows to put inside his corral. The farmers saddled horses for the round up, including one for Caroline (fellow member of Farm), and together they steered cows into his corral! Real cowboys in Iowa – never would have thought! Wonderful hands-on experiences like today are why I wanted to come up to Iowa.   This trip has allowed me to meet people who are authentic and who tell stories without a filter.  One farmer, Denny, worked as a cowboy in a traveling rodeo.   Getting first-hand experiences from these farmers results in an unparalleled experience. 

Our third day in Iowa was very eventful! We spent most of the day with Professor Kevin Butt from Ellsworth Community College. Professor Butt was a great instructor on farm safety. Before his safety lessons, I was ready to drive a tractor. Afterwards, I was definitely scared straight into taking every precaution. He punctuated his PowerPoint slides and lectures with a large number of personal stories. His hair-raising narratives of near-death experiences from his tractor engine catching on fire to almost hitting a power line with his combine, demonstrated the numerous everyday dangers that farmers face.  Moreover, he was very excited about the GPS and other high-tech devices being employed to use on various farm implements. We even got to drive in his GPS-automated mini-car – it was pretty cool! For lunch, we went to a really cool little soda place and got to walk around the town and visit a coffee shop. As a self-proclaimed caffeine addict, the Coffee Attic on Washington Street in Iowa Falls was pretty amazing!

After dinner, we saw an intriguing documentary, Ocean Frontiers, on four stories from across the nation about cooperative efforts to protecting the oceans. As a Floridian, I am very interested in coral reef conservation in particular, and one of the case studies centered on efforts to protect the coral reefs in the Florida Keys.  Of course, as a sustainability sciences major, I’m interested and intrigued by sustainability practices for all waterways. During the movie, the filmmakers also touched on noise pollution found in the Boston port channel. I had no idea how much underwater noise ships emit and how that noise affects the communication of every living organism under the water, but especially the whales that live in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Also, due to different chemicals (particularly nitrogen fertilizer) used in Iowa farm fields draining into the Mississippi River, the run-off has caused a massive dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Remarkably, a group of Iowa farmers are changing their farming practices to improve a body of water located hundreds of miles away from their business.  I think these farmers are incredibly inspiring for their desire to help restore wetlands in Iowa and champion new environmentally sensitive and cost effective farming practices.  In fact, the state of Iowa has embarked on a significant endeavor to reduce nutrients (notably nitrogen) in its waterways, and we’ve heard about this strategy a great deal during our time in Iowa.  We were fortunate to have the author of the agriculture portion of the strategy in attendance at our film viewing.  Ocean Frontiers was such an inspiring movie because people with different backgrounds, even states apart, can work together for a common good. Luckily, this good will positively affect humans and animals. With Iowa farmers being more careful about chemical runoff, maybe the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico will lessen allowing life to again flourish in the area. In addition, with just changing the route of ships the number of whales killed in the Boston Port has decreased significantly. Inspiring stories likes these leaves no doubt that we can restore ecosystems and environments.

Today was the most shocking day thus far, due in part because we were building an electric fence. Instead of being surrounded by the rest of my group, I spent a few hours assisting Dave Sweeney – a local farmer – in putting up electrical wire around his cow pasture. Mr. Sweeney was a 6’4 “big ole Republican farmer,” an image most of America can easily visualize. That visualization you created is the problem in today’s society, that we can easily visualize this man without ever engaging in a conversation with him.

Looming large in presence but surprisingly soft in voice, Dave began asking why the American public and media can simply associate the words farmer and Republican with negative connotations attached. I have been given the opportunity to draw my own conclusions, rather than base them off of another person’s stance, and obtain a better insight to the average farmer than before. Unfortunately society appears to invest more on opinions instead of developing their own thoughts.

Misinformed citizens now believe that Republican farmers are either affluent citizens or dumb hicks that work for them, neither of which understand the society that we live in today. Because of this assumption, people are unable to understand what agribusiness entails. While it is true that agribusiness does include wealthy profit-driven corporations, there are still signs of family farmers that populated the spacious fields of Iowa.

Family farmers have been unfairly associated with the potentially “evil” corporations of America, and this cycle is not easily fixable. While Mr. Sweeney has his own views on “hot topics” such as gay marriage and immigration reform, he shows the ability to respect and understand the opposing side’s view. He and I agreed that the person you least agree with is also the person that you learn the most from. For these “negative connotations” to vanish, people must be open to the opposing side’s view. Unfortunately, people spend most of their days engaging in conversations with people with whom they already agree. These political conversations transform into  “eco chambers” that confirms a person’s opinion as the “right” one. Unwilling to let their opinions be challenged, people can not realize the potential flaws in their opinions. Mr. Sweeney is unlike the majority of our society, and presented a conversation where dispute was welcomed instead of rejected. Even though there was a fence between us, both literally and figuratively, we both walked away that day understanding a side of the story that we had never heard before.