Jessica Wiskus is a rural landowner in Linn County whose property lies in Navigator’s proposed pipeline route.

You may have heard about the three proposals to build carbon pipelines crossing Iowa: one by Summit Carbon Solutions, one by Navigator CO₂ Ventures, and the newest for the Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM). My neighbors and I in eastern Iowa are standing together to fight these pipelines (see “Against Navigator Pipeline” on YouTube, with more than 2,000 views). Here’s why.

Carbon pipelines have known safety concerns. Ongoing research using explosions in controlled environments seeks to determine the impact of ruptures. We do know that at concentrations of 10-15 percent, carbon dioxide causes loss of consciousness, convulsions, coma, or death. Accidents sometimes happen (see the pipeline rupture outside of Satartia, Mississippi in 2020).

Our communities are vulnerable.

Installation of a pipeline wrecks the integrity of our land, ruining soil structure and lowering yields. The threat of eminent domain to seize farmland for these projects undermines the property rights of the very farmers who supply grain to the ethanol plants.

Finally, carbon capture and sequestration is not necessary to secure ethanol’s future as a low-carbon fuel. No one knows this better than ADM. The company’s own Carbon Reduction Feasibility Study from March 2020 concluded that carbon capture and sequestration is the least effective option for lowering their greenhouse gas emissions.

Why? Because while carbon capture is supposed to address the carbon dioxide from the fermentation of corn, the real problem for ADM is the carbon dioxide emitted from coal-fired energy production. Coal is responsible for 70 percent of the company’s on-site emissions. That’s why ADM’s own report recommended that the company wean itself off coal and tighten up efficiency.

In other words, ADM already has a plan to stop the majority of its carbon emissions from being generated. The company can lower its carbon footprint without attempting to bury sins by shoving a toxic waste transportation system through Iowa farmland.

Another large producer of bioethanol, POET, published a Sustainability Report in 2021 that also suggests multiple ways to address climate change without carbon capture and sequestration.

It is plain that carbon pipelines are dangerous, destructive, and unnecessary. The real reason corporations are aiming to capture carbon dioxide from ethanol plants is not for ethanol’s sake, but because ethanol is a “pure” and inexpensive source of liquid CO₂, which the oil and gas industry uses to extract more fossil fuels in a process called enhanced oil recovery (EOR).

It’s no coincidence that the proposed pipelines connect Illinois and North Dakota. That builds a national system transporting carbon dioxide from the biofuels industry to where the oil and gas industry needs it most.

One example from researchers at Princeton University, with funding by BP and Exxon, showing the capture of CO₂ from biofuels and other sources, transported for fossil fuel recovery. “A key early enabler of cost-effective CCS is anticipated through enhanced oil recovery (EOR),” the report states (“CO₂ Transport and Storage Infrastructure transition analysis,” December 2020).

We can keep our state from becoming a toxic waste transportation system. Republican State Senator Jeff Taylor of Sioux Center has introduced a bill (Senate File 2160) that would stop the use of eminent domain for private projects. The bill has been assigned to the Iowa Senate Commerce Committee and needs our support, since no subcommittee hearing has been scheduled.

We the people can make our voices heard and protect our land and our communities. Please—today—call State Senator Jason Schultz (712-269-2178 or 515-281-3371), who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee. Let him know that you want Senate File 2160 to pass.

Also, call your local Iowa House or Senate members (you can find contact information here). Please tell them you support SF 2160 and expect protection from the threat of eminent domain, now—before these corporations have shoved their pipelines through our ground.

I believe we can succeed if we stand shoulder to shoulder. Your neighbors will thank you, and I thank you for helping to protect the communities and the land we love.

Top image: Pasture on Jessica Wiskus’ Linn County farm. Photograph provided by the author and published with permission.

The post Now is the time to act against carbon pipelines appeared first on Bleeding Heartland.

Polk County Soil and Water Commissioner John Norwood announced on February 7 that he will run for Iowa secretary of agriculture as a Democrat. In a news release enclosed at the end of this post, Norwood promised to “protect urban and rural consumers, expand economic opportunities around diversified food and agricultural production, and advocate for the needs of ALL food, grain, and livestock producers.”

He added that he wants to create a “a modern vision for Iowa for its highly productive but “unbalanced” agricultural system,” in order to provide “healthy soil, clean air, swimmable/fishable waters and safe drinking water for everyone.”

Norwood expanded on his vision in a recent telephone interview with Bleeding Heartland. (Disclosure: I have known the candidate since before this website existed and consider him a friend.)

“WE NEED TO HAVE A PLAN B”

Norwood’s been seriously considering this race for months. Asked why he decided to run, he said he’s “spent a lot of time” working on these issues since being elected Polk County soil and water commissioner in 2018. “Soil and water are really foundational to our basic economy. We’re an agricultural state,” he said. If Iowa were a separate country, it would be a top ten agricultural producer globally.

While our farming is “highly productive,” we’re facing “storm clouds,” namely a changing climate and “the electric vehicle revolution.” Norwood is convinced “Those two forces are going to have an enormous impact on the Iowa system.”

“Regardless of what we think is the right answer” on electric vehicles, Norwood told me, “this isn’t a decision we get to control.” Worldwide, electric vehicle sales have doubled as a share of all car sales approximately every 12 to 24 months, from 4.1 percent in 2020 to 8.57 percent last year.

“That curve is going to come up pretty quickly,” Norwood said. No one had smart phones before 2007 or 2008, he noted. Now most of the world uses them.

The trend is “a big risk factor for our ethanol production,” which now consumes more than half the corn grown in Iowa. “We need to have a plan B.”

A bill moving quickly through the Iowa legislature would require that gas stations sell higher ethanol blends. Norwood doesn’t favor imposing an across the board requirement that could put small rural gas stations out of business. Rather, he would focus on the gas stations that sell the most product and give them incentive to sell more.

Trying to get individuals to buy different vehicles is “not going to move the needle” either. Instead, “You’ve got to be smart about where we can affect the demand generation.” It’s not some rural gas station pushing a few more gallons. “We’re not going to stop the electric vehicle revolution.”

As more consumers purchase electric vehicles, Norwood sees three major markets where ethanol and biodiesel can compete as a transitional fuel: aviation, marine, and rail. Those are energy-intensive sectors and “harder to electrify,” because “the battery technology isn’t where it needs to be.”

The corporations that dominate those sectors may resist shifting to biodiesel products because of the cost. On the other hand, many large companies are moving toward “environmental, social, and governance” criteria as they try to lower their carbon footprints. Getting those huge diesel consumers to use more biodiesel is realistic.

“I think that needs to be one of the focus areas, and spending less time trying to stop the tidal wave of electric vehicles” coming at us.

How would he respond to politicians who say any policies that promote electric vehicles benefit China at the expense of the biofuels industry? “Our agricultural system as it now stands is highly dependent on China buying our output,” Norwood pointed out—not only pork and soybeans but also the animal feed that comes out of the back end of ethanol plants.

AN “UNBALANCED” SYSTEM

Norwood’s vision for Iowa agriculture “builds on our tremendous commodity productivity,” but also addresses the “missing pieces” of resiliency, diversity, and sustainability. “We do not have a system right now that is built to last.”

What does he mean by an “unbalanced” agricultural system? One big problem is soil loss: we lose ten times more topsoil than can be sustained. “Corn in particular is very hard on the soil, it’s very wearing.”

Poor water quality is also an indicator of a system out of balance, as is the decline of many rural communities. Around 70 of Iowa’s 99 counties continue to lose population. It’s not surprising, since a commodity-based system requires fewer people and produces more with less human input over time. “If we want to have a system that’s back into balance with our communities and with nature, we need to begin to diversify.”

Norwood would address those problems in several ways. First, Iowa needs to “reimagine the drainage districts as water management districts.” The state should help counties find the money to modernize some 3,500 drainage districts, implementing approaches like water filtration, aquifer recharge, wetlands, and buffer strips.

We need to focus on soil health, and “We’ve got to do that at scale; we can’t do that one farm at a time.” Norwood observed that around 60 percent of Iowa farmland is rented. The landowners may know little about conservation practices, or may simply want to squeeze as much rent out of the property as possible. Renters are often working on small margins and may resist conservation practices that slow them down.

Improving soil health would have many benefits. Each 1 percent of organic matter (carbon) allows soil to store 27,000 gallons more water per acre, Norwood told me. Over 10 million acres, that’s the equivalent of 1.3 Saylorville Lakes of flood storage. After heavy rains, we would be sending less soil down the river to silt up our reservoirs and pollute the Gulf of Mexico.

Finally, Norwood supports policies to engage new farmers: promoting small organic farms, urban farming concepts, and even “a farm park” in each county where new farmers could get access to land, capital, and labor. Whereas corn and soybean farmers are working with hundreds of acres, many diversified farms can be profitable on a small number of acres.

WHAT DOES HE MEAN BY “TIP O’NEILL DEMOCRAT”?

In his news release and tweet announcing his candidacy, Norwood described himself as a “Tip O’Neill Democrat.” Many people under age 50 aren’t familiar with the former speaker of the U.S. House.

O’Neill was a “political hero” of Norwood’s when he was growing up in Massachusetts. He “got things done” as House speaker during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. “He was a relationship person, as am I.”

The most famous saying attributed to O’Neill is “All politics is local.” That applies to Iowa, with respect to ag and conservation, Norwood believes.

Though Norwood is a Democrat, he has spent a lot of time working with Republicans. For instance, for about five years former Governor Bob Ray was board chair at an organization where Norwood was the chief financial officer.

Before moving to Iowa 20 years ago, he worked for Republican Governor Pete Wilson’s administration in California, in an agency that combined agriculture and natural resources functions.

In addition to working with Republicans and independents, Norwood is committed to collaborating with local officials. “If you want to get things done in Iowa, the top-down approach doesn’t work so well.” You need to work at the county level and move up from there.

NAIG IS “NOT A VISIONARY PERSON”

As a challenger to Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, Norwood will need to persuade voters to fire the incumbent and hire him. So why shouldn’t Iowans re-elect Naig?

“He’s a really nice guy, but he’s been in office for four-plus years. In my opinion, he’s not a visionary person,” Norwood said. And because of his industry background with Monsanto, “he has a particular viewpoint.”

Naig’s experience “is well-suited within the corn-beans-hog complex as we know it,” but Norwood wants “to be the secretary of agriculture for urban and for rural, for small and big, organic, specialty” and so on. “This shouldn’t just be the secretary of corn, beans, and hogs,” which is how Naig has performed in office.

Norwood sees Naig as “more of a salesperson.” While “there is a sales component to the job,” it’s more important to confront the challenges facing Iowa agriculture. The state needs someone who can build coalitions and work with people toward a vision. “I haven’t seen that. I haven’t seen a sense of urgency with him.”

He recalled Naig’s appearance on the Iowa PBS program “Iowa Press” last year. The agriculture secretary dismissed a report on Iowa water quality as “a bit of propaganda” from “a Washington D.C. based advocacy organization.” Naig asserted, “what they talked about related to Iowa is not based in fact. We’re moving in the right direction.”

Norwood strongly disagrees. “No, we have a really serious water quality issue. We have very serious soil loss issues.” But under Naig’s leadership, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship has “stonewalled” efforts by the Polk County Soil and Water’s attempts to address the problems.

Naig’s department thinks the existing standard of four to five tons of soil loss per acre is acceptable. “I mean, that’s ten times what Mother Nature produces.” Last year, Polk County wanted to lower the numbers to a more sustainable level for soil loss, and “were basically told we couldn’t do that.”

We were told, you have to supply your own science to do that.

Well, that’s what the state’s supposed to do, and the federal government.

So if you get behind the doors of the Department of Agriculture, there are a lot of things that are not happening, that should be happening.

The legislation creating Iowa’s soil and water conservation districts said conservation should be led at the county level, and the state should support that. But in Norwood’s experience on the Polk County commission, “That’s not what’s been happening.” One exception was the bundled saturated buffer approach that he developed with others, which launched last summer.

“We reinvented that process. We went from one [installation] at a time to 50 at a time in Polk County. Next year it’s going to be 100. And it’s that kind of systems thinking that we need to begin to apply across our 3,500 drainage districts” in Iowa.

AG DEPARTMENT HAS IMPEDED COUNTY ATTEMPTS TO MODERNIZE

Norwood said Naig showed some interest in Polk County’s Central Iowa Water Quality Infrastructure Project. But in other ways, he and his department “have been more of an impediment” than a supporter of modernizing operations.

By way of example, the Polk County Soil and Water Commission wanted to establish a group health plan for staff, through Iowa Farm Bureau. Norwood floated the idea of doing this collectively with all of the state’s soil and water districts. Naig’s department “was almost no help” and didn’t even respond to a letter about the subject.

More broadly, Norwood said Naig “doesn’t have the vision” or the right priorities. There have been at least two documented cases of misappropriation of funds by employees of Iowa soil and water conservation districts (see here and here). Yet Norwood had to fight to get professional accounting software for the Polk County district, whose complex budget was being managed with an Excel spreadsheet. “I mean, this is like Business 101.”

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship wanted commissioners to go out and raise the money to pay for accounting software and a bookkeeper. “That’s just disrespectful of commissioners’ time,” Norwood said. “We’re volunteers.”

Naig’s family runs a farm and has worked for Fortune 500 companies. “How many of them did not have professional accounting software?” Norwood wondered.

He added, “I think Mike Naig should go to business school. I think that would really help him learn some basic principles of business and management.”

To follow Norwood’s campaign: website, Facebook, Twitter

Appendix 1: Introductory video for John Norwood as a candidate for secretary of agriculture

Appendix 2: Full text of February 7 news release

Soil & Water Commissioner Running for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture

WEST DES MOINES, IA – John Norwood, a Soil & Water Commissioner for Iowa’s capital county who describes himself as a “Tip O’Neill style Democrat” is running for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture in this year’s election.

“As Secretary, I will protect urban and rural consumers, expand economic opportunities around diversified food and agricultural production, and advocate for the needs of ALL food, grain, and livestock producers. My first priority will be to build urban and rural support around agriculture systems that are built to last – including strengthening the resiliency of our 20+ million acres of corn and bean ground. We must have healthy soil, clean air, swimmable/fishable waters and safe drinking water for everyone.”

Norwood also wants to create a modern vision for Iowa for its highly productive but “unbalanced” agricultural system. He envisions Iowa being a world-class model for community- based regenerative agriculture in the U.S. with new opportunities for first generation farmers, especially farmers of color.

“Farming can be reimagined to include small acreages, indoor farms, and planned “farm-parks” with infrastructure for processing, packaging and distribution – 80 million live within a day’s drive of Iowa. I plan to work at the county level, at the statehouse, and Washington DC, along with international partners to bring a “big tent” perspective to the role of Secretary of Agriculture. I want to create new opportunities for Iowa while finding actionable and timely solutions to the economic, environmental, system risks and health issues we face.”

Norwood’s professional background includes water utility experience in Boston, as well as experience leading an agricultural land trust in grape, nut, and cattle ranching in California where he worked closely with growers, ranchers, city, and county planners to increase the base of irrigated ag while protecting farmland from development. He has also worked in farm- based renewable energy, specialty feeds, and marketing Iowa grown local foods.

Norwood is a small business owner, and serves as a business advisor and board director. He travels the state regularly to work with business owners in agriculture, technology, manufacturing, and related industries.

“If elected, I will represent the voices of the many people who have told me they want a balanced vision for Iowa that includes the thoughtful use of state and federal monies to increase access to land and capital while we build a resilient, enduring Iowa for everyone.”

Norwood has an MBA and master’s degree Yale’s Forestry School and a bachelor’s degree from Williams College in Massachusetts. For the past twenty years, he and his family have resided in West Des Moines. For more info: www.Norwood4Iowa.com.

The post Interview: John Norwood outlines his vision for Iowa agriculture appeared first on Bleeding Heartland.

Dan Piller: A prolonged war that disrupts Ukraine’s grain production could reverse Iowa’s decline in world export markets.

“Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat” –Socrates

The longstanding boast of Iowa farmers that they “feed the world” has been made increasingly hollow in recent years as emerging grain export powers Brazil, Russia, and Ukraine have grabbed significant shares of the world’s markets from the long-dominant United States.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the attacks on Black Sea ports of Kherson, Mariupol, and eventually, Odessa will likely shut off Ukraine from its sea shipping lifeline. A lengthy war would bring into question the ability of Ukrainian farmers to prepare their fields and plant the spring crop.

The possible elimination of Ukraine as a major corn and wheat producer and exporter, even for a short period, could reverse Iowa farmers’ decline in world export markets.

UKRAINE’S GROWTH AS A GRAIN EXPORTER

Ukraine can be thought of as the Iowa of Europe and Central Asia. Its thick black soil is comparable in fertility to Iowa, and so is the April-to-October growing season and its moderate (at least compared to Siberia) climate. In recent years Ukraine, like an upstart Cinderella in the NCAA basketball tournament, has scored some significant wins against the grain export blue bloods.

Among grain exporters, the U.S. is the bluest of bloods. But its hegemony has dwindled. Through the 1980s the U.S. supplied more than 80 percent of the world’s corn exports and 40 percent of exported wheat. By 2020 those figures had been whittled down to 33 percent of the world’s export share for corn and 13 percent for wheat.

It is important to note to Iowans, accustomed to the joys of corn-fed beef and pork, that most of the rest of the world feeds wheat to its livestock.

The prime reason for the fall of the U.S. from near-total dominance in world grain export markets is the emergence of Russia and Ukraine in corn and wheat and Brazil in soybeans.

Since 2000, Russia has advanced from being a beggar importer of wheat to leading the world’s export market at 18 percent. The U.S. is number two at 13 percent, and Ukraine is a close third. While the U.S. is still the world’s largest corn exporter, with 33 percent, Ukraine has emerged as runner-up at 15 percent. Russia now ranks third in corn exports.

PROS AND CONS OF HIGH GRAIN PRICES

Iowa isn’t a factor in wheat production, but after several years of depressed markets its corn and soybean growers have enjoyed higher prices due to giant purchases by China, which needs feed to rebuild is disease-struck hog herd for a nation that regards pork as a dietary staple. But nobody expects China’s record purchases to continue indefinitely, which is why Iowa farmers and their representatives in Washington have fought so tenaciously for continuation of subsidies and mandates for grain-fed ethanol and biodiesel.

As a result of China’s largesse and a drought in Brazil, the world’s largest soybean producer, corn and soybean prices have almost doubled in the last two years to $7.60 for corn and $15 for soybeans. What’s not to like about that?

Well, while cash corn farmers revel in the higher prices, they face fertilizer prices that have quadrupled in the face of white-hot demand and sanctions put on Russia, a major supplier of the natural gas that is the basis for nitrogen-based fertilizer. Livestock producers, whose inventories of cattle and hogs have remained constant or declined in the last 40 years despite a one-third increase in the U.S. population, will think twice about increasing their herds in the face of higher feed costs.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is warning consumers, already beset by increases in beef prices of 20-30 percent and 15-18 percent for pork, to be ready for more increased prices this year. Politicians, including President Joe Biden and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, have shrieked about the market consolidation of meat processors, but their verbal poundings on meatpackers are unlikely to relieve meat prices in time for America’s summer grilling season.

Ethanol producers will be in for a tough year if they have to pay prices north of $7 per bushel for their corn feedstock. If they can’t sell their product to gasoline refiners at profitable discounts, we can expect those refiners to make haste to Washington in search of exemptions from biofuels blending requirements.

PAST IOWA AGRICULTURAL BOOMS AND BUSTS

The presence of sky-high grain prices and an attendant 80-year record for Iowa farmland prices harkens back to some uncomfortable history. Iowa agriculture has proved to be far better at riding speculative market booms up than guiding itself back to a soft landing when prices turn down, as they inevitably do.

Corn prices reached an inflation-adjusted $20 per bushel in 1918 and again in 1946 in the aftermath of World Wars I and II. Those golden years didn’t last, and American farmers found themselves either losing land through sales or foreclosure or sticking it out by existing largely on government subsidies.

In 1973 some relief came from an unlikely source; the Soviet Union, unable to feed itself, bought massive amounts of corn and wheat. Again, prices for grain and farmland shot up and the good times rolled until President Jimmy Carter embargoed grain sales to the USSR in 1980 to punish the Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan.

There followed the miserable 1980s, when one-third of Iowa farms were lost. American farmers responded with another wave of consolidations and, when markets improved, with renewed exports. Not until the end of the first decade of the 21^st century could U.S. agriculture be considered to have recovered from the 80s trough.

So as Iowa farmers dangle on the hinge of their own history, they find themselves bound involuntarily to the even longer history of Russia and Ukraine.

FROM RUSSIAN GRAIN EXPORTS TO SOVIET IMPORTS

The legendary Russian strongman Peter the Great, for all his glory, never solved Russia’s persistent problem of lacking warm weather seaports to complement the ice-bound outlets at St. Petersburg, Murmansk, and Vladivostok. On his deathbed in 1725, Peter warned his subjects that if Russia was ever to emerge from the shadow of Europe and become a great power, it needed a warm weather port. Sixty-four years later Catherine the Great achieved Peter’s goal when she annexed Ukraine, and built the vital port of Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea.

Sevastopol and its Black Sea neighbor Odessa played key roles in making Russia the world’s preeminent world wheat exporter. In the last quarter of the 19^th century, emerging American agriculture frequently was stymied in export markets by huge flows of Russian wheat from the Black Sea.

That Romanoff agrarian heyday ended with the Russian Revolution of 1917. For the next 70 years, the Marxist-Leninists proved conclusively that while communism could perform passably well producing military equipment and some heavy industry, it was abominably poor at agriculture. Stalin had to resort to starvation to get collectivization set up in Ukraine, and the Soviet Union’s struggle for superpower status after World War II was foiled consistently by the food shortages which played a role in the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

Vladimir Putin, for all his Marxist/KGB breeding, recognized that Russia could achieve economic dominance letting Russia’s energy and agriculture roam in the world’s free markets. Russian agriculture was loosened from collectivist chains. The privatized Russian agriculture achieved breathtaking gains in the first two decades of the 21^st century, tripling its wheat production and achieving records for world grain exports.

Russia’s new self-sufficiency in food production freed Putin from having to repeat the humiliating process of its Soviet predecessors and beg for grain. That has made Putin more likely to flip Washington the bird whenever he feels like it.

BLACK SEA PORTS KEY TO UKRAINE’S GROWING EXPORTS

Ukraine, which became an independent nation in 1991, was no slouch, either. The same privatization deployed by Moscow worked in Kyiv, coming from nowhere in the 1990s to become the world’s second largest corn producer and exporter. American farmers and grain traders have learned to watch the Black Sea markets closely, as did their 19^th century forbearers.

The Black Sea ports are the key to continuation of this post-communist agricultural success for Russia as it reaches for markets in Europe, Africa, and Asia. It was thus little surprise that while the Russian army seemingly has dallied near Kyiv, it has moved with dispatch to the south along the Black Sea coast and made Kherson its first major conquest.

Putin has said little about agriculture, focusing his anti-Ukrainian ire on Kyiv’s desire to join the European Union and NATO. But a strategic thinker like Putin has to be painfully aware that an independent Ukraine on the north side of the Black Sea, along with an equally-independent Georgia on the east coast of the Black Sea, threatens to restore the landlocked status for Russia that was the despair of Peter the Great.

So as Russian bombs and artillery pound Ukrainian cities, Iowa farmers watch and wait to see what kind of new world agricultural order emerges.

UPDATE: Ukraine’s government has banned exports of wheat, oats, “millet, buckwheat, sugar, live cattle, and meat and other ‘byproducts’ from cattle,” the Associated Press reported on March 9.

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

Top photo: March 1, 2021. Commercial dry cargo ship arrives at the port of Odessa in Ukraine to load grain. Photo by Sergei Diordiev available via Shutterstock.

The post Iowa grain and the war in Ukraine appeared first on Bleeding Heartland.

The biofuels industry got a big win in the Iowa legislature this week, as the state House and Senate approved a bill requiring most gas stations in the state to dispense a higher ethanol blend known as E15 from at least half of their pumps.

All but a handful of Democratic legislators voted for the bill, and no Democrat spoke against the proposal during Senate or House floor debate.

It was the latest example of how Iowa Democratic politicians have embraced biofuels industry talking points and avoided challenging any policies seen as supporting ethanol.

STALLED BILL FINALLY MOVES FORWARD

Governor Kim Reynolds pushed for legislation last year to mandate that retailers sell E15 at all but one pump. Lobbyists for fuel retailers strenuously opposed the bill, which failed to advance despite a lobbying push from the renewable fuels industry as well as corn and soybean growers.

This year’s version was supposed to soften the blow for small retailers, which would not be able to recoup the cost of installing new equipment for dispensing E15. House members approved House File 2128 by 82 votes to 10 in early February. Just three Democrats (Mary Mascher, Phyllis Thede, and Cindy Winckler) joined seven Republicans (Eddie Andrews, Steven Bradley, Mark Cisneros, Tom Jeneary, Gary Mohr, Cherielynn Westrich, and Skyler Wheeler) to vote against that bill.

The ethanol mandate moved quickly through the Iowa Senate Agriculture Committee, and seemed to be on a fast track to the governor’s desk. But it stalled in the chamber’s Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax matters, for more than two months.

After backroom negotiations involving the governor’s staff, agriculture groups that support the mandate, and fuel retailers that had lobbied against it, Senate Ways and Means Committee chair Dan Dawson unveiled an amendment to the bill on April 25. Katie Akin reported for Iowa Capital Dispatch,

Gas stations that sell fewer than 300,000 gallons a year would be eligible for a waiver, under the amended bill. That amounts to about a third of Iowa gas stations, which account for just 6% of overall sales, according to Sen. Waylon Brown, R-Osage.

Fueling stations are eligible for state funding to help them make the required infrastructure changes to sell E15. The smallest retailers could receive a state grant for up to 90% of an upgrade cost.

Akin quoted State Senator Pam Jochum, the ranking Democrat on Ways and Means, as saying she would “hold my nose and vote for this today, very reluctantly […] primarily because I have in my community a biodiesel plant.“ Jochum added, “I’ll be darned if I can figure out why we think mandating this is a good idea on E15.”

Other Democrats on the committee questioned what would happen if the federal government goes back to prohibiting E15 sales from June through mid-September. President Joe Biden announced earlier this month that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would waive the usual ban on E15 sales during the summer months (a policy grounded in smog concerns), in order to help “get [gasoline] prices under control and reduce the costs for families.”

According to Brown, the bill’s floor manager, “Reynolds could waive the requirement to sell E15 if federal law once again prohibited it in the warmer months.”

DEMOCRATS ECHO REPUBLICANS IN CELEBRATING BILL

When the Iowa Senate debated the revised House File 2128 on April 26, three Republicans raised serious concerns.

State Senator Adrian Dickey, who has owned fuel retailers, said the bill had improved since last year. But even with the subsidy, retailers won’t profit from investing in pumps that can supply E15. The exemption for small retailers was of limited value, according to Dickey, since stores that opted out would be at a competitive disadvantage compared to stations selling the cheaper ethanol blends.

Dickey also said the goals are not realistic, and the bill sets an “impossible” timeline for state agencies and installers. He predicted the legislature would be back in the coming years to fix those problems. (Oddly, he voted for the bill anyway.)

Two other Republicans opposed the bill on philosophical grounds. State Senator Dennis Guth, a farmer who owns “a few shares” in an ethanol plant, questioned whether government should be picking winners and losers. He said he supports E15 “in every way that I can. But I don’t think it’s the government’s job to use their big club to make things happen.”

Similarly, State Senator Jim Carlin advocated for “conservative Republican values” and a “free market,” as opposed to the government telling “a business what infrastructure they need to have. And if they don’t comply they will be at a competitive disadvantage of nine cents a gallon.”

In contrast, the Democrats who spoke in the Senate echoed Republican proponents in talking up the economic value of the bill. State Senator Kevin Kinney, who is a farmer and has a biofuels plant in his district, asserted (wrongly) that “32 percent or more of our budget is directly related to the ag industry” as he called the bill “a step in the right direction.”

State Senator Todd Taylor said the bill would help the economy in urban and rural Iowa. He also asserted it would promote “clean air and clean energy, and renewables for the future are what we need for growing our economy, creating jobs and sustainable jobs.”

GOP Senator Brown claimed the legislation would boost Iowa’s GDP by $457 million and support 3,500 new jobs, while adding $550 million to Iowa household income and increasing state and local revenues by $180 million over five years. He also asserted Iowa would be “in a great position” to help provide energy independence for the nation.

Senators approved the bill by 42 votes to three (Carlin, Guth, and Democrat Joe Bolkcom). Two Democrats who are strong environmental voices, Rob Hogg and Claire Celsi, were absent during the Senate debate. Asked whether they would have supported the bill, they declined to comment for the record.

The House debated the revised House File 2128 for only a few minutes. Floor manager Lee Hein briefly explained the amendment. Democratic State Representative Mary Wolfe said she would be a yes on the amendment and the bill. House members then approved the bill by 81 votes to thirteen. The opponents were Democrats Ako Abdul-Samad, Marti Anderson, Liz Bennett, Bruce Hunter, Chuck Isenhart, Mary Mascher, Art Staed, Thede, and Winckler, and Republicans Cisneros, Jeneary, Westrich, and Wheeler.

After the bill received final legislative approval, Reynolds said in a written statement,

This is a historic win for Iowa families, for our agriculture and biofuels industry, and for Iowa’s entire economy. By increasing access to more affordable, homegrown biofuels made right here in Iowa, we are lowering the price at the pump and getting America back on track toward energy independence.

I am proud that my biofuels legislation will lead to the single greatest expansion of biofuels in our state’s history, while providing our industry with consistency in the face of ever-changing federal policy. I commend the legislature for working with me to advance this bill and I look forward to signing it into law in the coming days.

A statement from Iowa Senate Minority leader Zach Wahls, released earlier the same day, struck many of the same notes.

This legislation is a win-win for the Iowa economy, especially in our small towns and rural areas.

By taking another step to support homegrown biofuels, the Legislature is showing its support for Iowa farmers, for creating good-paying jobs, and for reducing our reliance on foreign oil. We are also giving Iowans more choices at the pump when they fill up.

UPDATE: Iowa House Minority leader Jennifer Konfrst wrote in the April 29 edition of her weekly newsletter,

When lawmakers convened for a day this week, we took one step forward. Growing Iowa’s strong agricultural and manufacturing heritage has made us a world leader in renewable energy such as wind, solar, ethanol, and biodiesel. While the proposal approved this week wasn’t perfect, it will continue that tradition while keeping tens of thousands of jobs and pushing new dollars into our economy.

DEMOCRATS UNWILLING TO CHALLENGE PRO-ETHANOL POLICIES

Iowa Democrats have almost uniformly supported policies to benefit the ethanol industry since the first federal Renewable Fuel Standard became law in 2005. The orthodoxy surrounding this issue—which University of Iowa research engineer Chris Jones has dubbed “The Iowa Singularity”—has influenced federal policy, because presidential hopefuls from both parties have pledged allegiance to ethanol when campaigning in Iowa.

Many Iowans don’t realize that corn-based ethanol was intended to be a transitional fuel toward cellulosic ethanol, produced from plant material rather than grains. But cellulosic production never proved viable on a large scale.

Instead of questioning the value of an ongoing massive government investment in ethanol, most Iowa Democratic politicians have stuck with the program, demonstrating their loyalty to the industry at every opportunity.

Over-the-top praise for the new Biden administration policy on E15 sales was a classic example of the dynamic. U.S. Representative Cindy Axne (D, IA-03) accompanied the president to the Guthrie County ethanol plant where he made the announcement on April 12. Axne said in a news release,

I have been fighting tooth and nail to make sure biofuels is a part of the clean energy solution. Investing in biofuels not only helps Iowa’s farmers and rural communities, but also reduces our nation’s reliance on fossil fuels and brings down prices for Iowa families. Ethanol is significantly cheaper at the pump, helps reduce our carbon emissions, and provides good paying jobs right here in Iowa. I am immensely grateful for the President’s announcement to ensure E15 remains available year-round and for his continued work, along with Secretary Vilsack, in supporting Iowa farmers and rural communities.

The Iowa Democratic Party released a statement from chair Ross Wilburn, which read in part,

Supporting Iowa’s ethanol industry not only helps our economy, but also reduces our dependence on foreign oil and gives us leverage against greedy oil corporations and Putin’s Price Hike.

I’m proud of President Biden and Congresswoman Cindy Axne’s commitment to this foundational Iowa industry that is crucial to the success of many communities all over our state.

It seems improbably that E15 could contribute meaningfully to U.S. energy independence, considering that only about 2.3 percent of gas stations across the country are equipped to sell the higher ethanol blend.

Former Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson has argued that over-production is responsible for many of the ethanol industry’s problems, which Iowa politicians typically blame on federal government policies. He has also challenged industry estimates about ethanol’s economic impact. In a July 2019 commentary for this website, Swenson wrote that rural Iowa “is more than farm sector economics.”

The celebrated ethanol boom of the last decade increased employment in that sector by about 1,400 jobs statewide, but nearly all of the counties that hosted new plants have declined in population this decade.

More recently, Swenson has speculated that ethanol “probably reached peak production” before the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused demand to collapse as Americans drove less. Speaking to the Cedar Rapids Gazette’s John Steppe last year about the proposal to mandate E15 pumps at Iowa gas stations, Swenson predicted such a law would have a “marginal” impact on the industry, because “Just a small fraction of Iowans don’t burn gasoline with ethanol.”

Many observers have questioned how “sustainable” it is for the government to keep propping up ethanol production, when U.S. and foreign auto manufacturers are steadily moving away from gasoline-powered vehicles, and electric vehicles comprise a growing share of new car sales.

DEMOCRATS OVERLOOK ETHANOL’S ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

Peer-reviewed research has highlighted environmental problems associated with ethanol production. Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture and industry advocates have claimed ethanol can help address climate change, a study released earlier this year indicated that “Corn ethanol is not a climate-friendly fuel.” On the contrary: the Renewable Fuel Standard led to expanded corn production, more fertilizer application and water pollution, and land use changes that increased greenhouse gas emissions by at least 24 percent compared emissions from ordinary gasoline use.

University of Iowa Professor Silvia Secchi co-authored a paper in 2011 projecting how biofuels policy would affect land use and the environment in the corn belt. Writing about the new study in February, Secchi observed,

Our focus was predicting changes that had not yet happened and on water quality, the PNAS study looks at whether the changes we predicted actually happened at the national scale and comprehensively considers both water and GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions. Lo and behold, they find that the water got worse and that more land went into annual crop production and corn specifically so higher ethanol production actually caused more carbon to be released in the atmosphere than if we had used gasoline. The study is remarkable because it shows that these effects in the US alone are enough to make ethanol a loss not just for the taxpayers who have been subsidizing it directly or indirectly for decades, but also for the climate.

Jones has calculated that solar panels could produce more usable energy than ethanol, without the soil erosion, water pollution, and other by-products of conventional agriculture. He has also pointed out that Iowa farmland now devoted to corn could be used to grow other crops, which humans could consume directly. Yet few Democratic elected officials or candidates are willing to talk about better alternatives to ethanol.

In a post published last month, Jones wrote,

Iowa is the best place on earth to harness photosynthesis for the benefit of our species. We should try to do that here. But doing what we’re doing is an abomination. We grow only two plant species and use more than ½ of the calories produced to unnecessarily fuel engines. Because we can, and because it enriches a privileged few. And because we’re lazy. The opportunity costs of using 11,000 square miles of Iowa land and 60,000 nationwide for corn ethanol are huge. Ethanol is a distraction and our continued devotion to it is dangerous.

After the legislature approved House File 2128, University of Iowa Professor David Cwiertny tweeted, “Everyone who voted for this just surrendered their privileges to ever talk about how much they care about clean water. Our commitment to corn ethanol locks us into a cycle of production that is incompatible with healthy water resources.”

Secchi chimed in to criticize the bipartisan decision to mandate “an obsolete technology that benefits a small minority of rich white ppl and hurts air and water. […] Especially now as the Ukraine war impacts food availability, wasting [corn] on this is despicable political theater.”

The biofuels industry is a major force behind proposed pipelines that would capture carbon dioxide from ethanol plants and transport it to North Dakota, where it might be used for fracking. Building the pipelines would compact and displace topsoil, without meaningfully reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Democratic politicians have not been cheerleaders for the pipelines. But they haven’t denounced them, nor have state House and Senate leaders championed legislation that would block the use of eminent domain for such projects.

Earlier this year, members of the Iowa Democratic Party’s governing body voted to table a resolution that would have put the party on record opposing “development and construction of pipelines involved in the carbon capture and sequestration process.”

Years from now, Iowans may wonder why our state’s political establishment fought so hard to preserve market share for ethanol, instead of helping those now employed in the industry to prepare for the fuel’s inevitable decline. Unlike many other harmful bills the Iowa legislature approved during the 2022 session, this mistake can’t be pinned on a single party.

UPDATE: Jones, Secchi, Cwiertny, and Swenson recorded a podcast episode about the E15 bill on April 28. Jones suggested, and Swenson agreed, that this law could be characterized as a “fart in a hurricane,” since the vast majority of U.S. consumers won’t be purchasing E15, no matter what Iowa does.

Top image: Democratic State Senator Todd Taylor speaks on April 26 in favor of a bill mandating most Iowa gas stations to sell E15. Screenshot from the official legislative video.

The post Iowa Democrats won’t speak truth to ethanol power appeared first on Bleeding Heartland.

Chris Peterson is a family farmer who lives near Clear Lake (Cerro Gordo County).

When most people think of small businesses, they imagine a brick and mortar store on Main Street that offers retail or restaurant services. Most would not think of the work worn hands of a person caring for Berkshire hogs on a small farm. But that’s exactly what family farms are: a small business. 

Farming is the only thing I’ve ever known – it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. I’m a third generation American farmer and I had my first pigs when I was a sophomore in high school.

I love farming, and like any other small business, farming comes with its challenges. There were times when I had to go without health care because we simply couldn’t afford it. That’s a dangerous way to live when both my wife and I have health concerns requiring medical attention. That’s part of the reason I worked so hard to support the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It is a lifesaver for people like us.

Over the past decade Republicans have tried again and again to repeal the ACA. I can’t help but worry that if they get control of Congress, they’ll come after my health care and make preexisting conditions a death sentence for folks like me. We need more elected representatives like Senator John McCain who put the needs of everyday Americans over party politics when he voted against the last Republican repeal effort.

But it isn’t just health care that’s a challenge for farmers, it’s the way the system is rigged to favor corporate farms and monopolies over family farmers like myself. Big companies are pushing out little guys like me and ruining our rural way of life. I’ve seen it here in Clear Lake, and I’ve seen it across Iowa. 

Today, four main conglomerates control the meat industry, and they control 66 percent of the pork industry. While families are seeing rising prices at the grocery store and corporations are seeing record profits, it’s the little guys like me who are getting squeezed out of any earnings. I hear a lot of talk from politicians in Washington about inflation and meat monopolies, but so far, all they’ve done is talk. 

Politicians like U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson talk about fighting for rural Iowans and our way of life. But, so far, I haven’t seen it. In fact, she says she supports making the Tax Cuts Jobs Act permanent, another gift to the fat cat CEOs and ultra-wealthy.

If Hinson wants to support rural Iowans and our way of life, she needs to realize we’re working our tails off to keep going. We really don’t want to worry about our representative in DC trying to take away our health care and push family farmers like me out of business in favor of corporate interests.

When you think about small businesses, remember that farmers like me are small business owners. We work hard to provide food for our communities and our nation, and we deserve to have our members of Congress working for us.

The post The system is rigged for corporate farms over family farmers appeared first on Bleeding Heartland.

Larry Stone reviews Neil Hamilton’s new book The Land Remains: A Midwestern Perspective on our Past and Future.

Many of us baby boomer farm kids recall growing up in the 1950s and 60s walkin’ beans, baling hay, quail in the fencerows, and “the back 40.” But you don’t need a time machine to recapture that era, or to ponder the future of Iowa agriculture. Just read The Land Remains, by Neil D. Hamilton.

Raised on an Adams County farm, Hamilton earned forestry and law degrees before becoming director of the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University in Des Moines. He recently retired after 36 years. His memoir traces his growing awareness of how our agricultural policies have shaped not only the land but also the very fabric of our society.

“….. farming at its essence is all about joy,” Hamilton writes.

Being able to harness sun, rain, and seeds to create new wealth; to work with livestock to bring forth new generations of animals; to work the land to feed the nation and support the family, and working to sustain our future can be and has made farming one of the most fulfilling careers possible.

But Hamilton is troubled by Iowa’s not-so-joyful transition from 200,000 small, diverse family farms into one-third that many industrial scale operations. He offers a sobering analogy between Appalachia and Iowa. Appalachian farmers lost their autonomy to economic, social, and environmental degradation brought on by the extractive coal and timber industries. The Iowa extractive industries are corn and pigs.

“We are essentially mining our soil and water resources, extracting fertility and future productivity to raise crops used for industrial purposes or export,” Hamilton says of our corn ethanol and hog confinement focus.

Can we learn from history? Hamilton celebrates the contributions to conservation by Iowans John F. Lacey, Aldo Leopold, Henry A. Wallace, and J. N. “Ding” Darling.

Hamilton admires Leopold’s “land ethic,” that humans have a moral duty to care for the “land,” including all of nature.

He returns often to that theme, suggesting that public policies in the 1930s and 40s acknowledged the importance of soil conservation. But “by the end of the 1950s the vision and leadership to carry on the soil conservation work identified with FDR’s era was largely abandoned, replaced by the economic determinism still haunting farm country today.”

To be sure, farm organizations and the Iowa legislature came to agree on Iowa’s voluntary Nutrient Reduction Strategy (NRS) – which will supposedly reduce nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients leaving farm fields and flowing to the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, Hamilton writes, the NRS “can best be summarized as high hopes and best wishes, or less charitably, faith in magical thinking.”

A lost cause? Not at all! Hamilton takes heart in the “rustling whispers of doubt” he’s hearing from people who are concerned “about the food we eat and what it means for the land.”

To help tell the story, Hamilton enlists the occasional voice of “The Back 40,” a perceptive plot of land hidden in the center of his home farm. Noting, for example, how some landowners are struggling to recreate prairie after their ancestors broke the virgin sod 150 years ago, The Back 40 wryly observes that “my time frame is so different than yours.”

There’s a growing movement of “eaters who yearn to buy food raised by people they know on land they can visit,” The Back 40 adds. That can mean anything from a dozen eggs from your Amish neighbor to a package of Niman Ranch pork to fresh greens from a local farmer’s market.      

Hamilton cites World Food Prize recipient D. Rattan Lal, of Ohio State University, who proposed a federal “Healthy Soils Act” that could stand with the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act to highlight the importance of healthy soils to human health. And perhaps to the soil’s role in slowing or reversing climate change.

We need leaders with the vision to make changes, Hamilton says. He praises groups like the Practical Farmers of Iowa and the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation for their innovations in farming practices, land ownership, and conservation. When Hamilton needed to sell part of his family’s land, he made sure it went to a young farmer with a commitment to keeping it healthy, rather than to an absentee investor.

“It may be hard in stressful times to think about the land as a priority,” the author writes, acknowledging society’s seemingly perpetual social, economic, and political upheavals.

“The truth is, now is an excellent time to focus on Land because it is enduring and it provides a source of hope . . .”

The Back 40, also hopeful, expects a “spark of imagination” from scholars like the boy who went away to law school.

“My hope is you will find the genius in the law and the imagination in your hearts to protect me,” The Back 40 says, “and to make it possible the land remains.”

Larry Stone explored Iowa for 40 years, both as an outdoor writer/photographer for the Des Moines Register and as a freelance nature writer and photographer. He has written five books, and his work has appeared in several conservation magazines. He is a member of the Clayton County Conservation Board. He and his wife, Margaret Stone, manage woodlands and prairies on their farm along the Turkey River near Elkader.

Top photo by Larry Stone of a Clayton County farm provided by the author and published with permission.

The post Book review: The Land Remains appeared first on Bleeding Heartland.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig will take a big financial advantage into the general election, new campaign disclosures show. Although the GOP incumbent didn’t raise much more than Democratic challenger John Norwood during the latest reporting period, he has about ten times more cash on hand.

The secretary of agriculture started the year with $148,457.66 in his campaign account and raised another $25,966.46 between January 1 and May 14. About a third ($8,650) came from political action committees associated with the agriculture sector, which cut the checks a few days before the Iowa legislature convened. (Iowa law prohibits state candidates from receiving PAC donations while the legislature is in session.) Naig will likely receive more PAC contributions after the legislative adjourns for the year.

Naig’s campaign appears to have no full-time staff and spent just $18,470.95 during the latest reporting period. As of May 14, his campaign had $155,953.17 cash on hand. It had also received an in-kind contribution of a private plane flight donated by David Barker, valued at $708.73.

The first time Naig appeared on the ballot in 2018, agribusiness corporations spent hundreds of thousands of dollars promoting the Republican shortly before the election. (It was legal, thanks to Iowa’s weak campaign finance regulations.) Naig was new to the office then, having been appointed by Governor Kim Reynolds after Bill Northey stepped down from the state office to take a senior position in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Whether Naig will receive corporate support at the same level this year is unclear. GOP candidates were facing some headwinds during the 2018 cycle that aren’t a factor now, when Democrats hold power in Washington.

Norwood has been elected Polk County Soil and Water Commissioner but is a first-time candidate for state office. His campaign finance disclosure shows contributions of $24,998.76, all from individuals, and in-kind donations of $405.74. Norwood brought in $11,000 in contributions of at least $1,000; the rest of the money came from smaller donors.

The Democrat has no paid staff and has spent $10,939.64 since the beginning of the year on a range of typical campaign expenses. As of May 14, Norwood’s campaign had $14,368.73 in the bank and $1,280 in unpaid bills. That’s not nearly enough to support a statewide campaign, other than some digital advertising.

Naig will be heavily favored for re-election unless something changes dramatically in this race.

The post Mike Naig has money advantage in ag sec race appeared first on Bleeding Heartland.

Randy Evans can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com.

In 1972, Gordon Garrison purchased 300 acres of farmland in Emmet County, a rectangle near the Minnesota border one county to the east of the Iowa Great Lakes. 

The Iowa State University agricultural engineering graduate began raising sheep and crops. He also set about working to restore the “prairie pothole” ecology of shallow wetlands that was common in northwestern Iowa when white settlers began arriving 175 years ago. 

Garrison built a house on his land in 1999. He still lives there, although his quality of life has taken a troubling turn since he put down roots there.  

Life for Garrison and his neighbors changed significantly in December 2015 when New Fashion Pork LLP built a CAFO, or a confined animal feeding operation, uphill from and adjacent to Garrison’s property. The confinement building — which the state allows to house 4,400 to 8,800 hogs, depending on their size — is about a half mile from Garrison’s property. 

A subsidiary of New Fashion Pork owns more agricultural land adjacent to Garrison’s property. That land is used for disposal of hog manure. It is important to remember that Gordon Garrison and his family arrived and built their home before the hog confinement entered the picture. It is important to remember that he was there before the Iowa legislature passed the “right-to-farm” law in 2020, which provides livestock producers with broad immunity from lawsuits as long as they comply with state and federal regulations. 

This isn’t a matter of a family moving to an agricultural area and then being surprised to find there are unpleasant odors associated with livestock. Nevertheless, the Iowa law says animal-feeding operations “shall not be found to interfere with another person’s comfortable use and enjoyment of the person’s life or property.” 

Garrison’s comfortable use and enjoyment of his property changed after the CAFO was built. He experienced nausea and dizziness from the odor and said it was sometimes so intense he could not work outside. Nearby landowners corroborated his complaints.  

That’s what brought Garrison before the Iowa Supreme Court this year. But in the topsy-turvy world in which we live these days in Iowa, the majority sided with New Fashion Pork in Garrison’s lawsuit against the CAFO over its noxious odors and manure pollution reaching onto his land. 

The 4-3 decision also threw out the Iowa Supreme Court’s own legal test that has guided our state's courts for eighteen years in deciding questions of whether a CAFO is operating as a public nuisance. The court’s decision said, “CAFOs are controversial, but it is not our role to second-guess the Legislature’s policy choices.”  

The three justices who sided with Garrison — Brent Appel, Christopher McDonald, and Dana Oxley — delivered an important lesson on Iowans’ inalienable rights, which stand above laws the legislature enacts. But the four justices in the majority — Thomas Waterman, Edward Mansfield, Chief Justice Susan Christensen, and Matthew McDermott — weren't buying the analysis.

Appel wrote in his dissent, “We must never forget that the Iowa founders presented a rights-based constitution to the voters of Iowa. And the rights provided in the Iowa Constitution are superior and above the vicissitudes of politics.”

He continued:

The first article in the Iowa Constitution is the Iowa Bill of Rights, and the first section of the first article is what has been called the inalienable rights or the natural rights clause. "All men and women are, by nature, free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights — among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.”

In the understatement of the day, Appel added, “The founders were well aware of the capability of special interests to dominate the halls of government. … The Iowa Bill of Rights is a shield that protects the people’s rights from the political process.” 

As you read Appel’s lesson on the history of special interests in Iowa government, circa 1857, you can easily jump forward to today and think of “agricultural interests” and state political leaders’ lack of concern about Iowa's growing water quality problems, as well as quality-of-life concerns arising from the hog confinements like the one sending odors over the home of Gordon Garrison and funneling manure onto his property. 

Appel wrote,

The central issue in this case is this: Can the government, consistent with article I, section 1 of the Iowa Constitution, enact a statute that authorizes a landowner to appropriate or take for the landowner’s benefit the property interest of a neighboring landowner, without any compensation or benefit to the other owner?

He added, “In other words, are we telling the existing property owners that they are required to ‘take one for the team’ as the private owners next door emit nuisance odors under a scheme of statutory immunity?” 

A separate dissent by McDonald was equally blunt. 

The Iowa Constitution affords strong protection for private property. These interrelated constitutional provisions preclude the government from immunizing private nuisancers from having to pay full compensation for depriving another of the right to use and enjoy property. At least they did until today. The majority overturns well-supported and well-established case law and eviscerates the right to possess, use, enjoy, and protect property.

He added, “I respectfully dissent.”

Editor's note: This document contains the full text of the majority opinion by Justice Thomas Waterman, the concurrence by Justice Edward Mansfield, and dissenting opinions by Justice Brent Appel and Justice Christopher McDonald in Garrison v. New Fashion Pork

Top image of confined animal feeding operation by Mai.Chayakorn available via Shutterstock.

The post Iowa Supreme Court’s unfair message: “Take one for the team” appeared first on Bleeding Heartland.

Early this month, Lee Tesdell invited me to the Prairie Strips Field Day he hosted at his family's century farm in northern Polk County. I've visited many prairie restorations in progress, but this was my first encounter with a prairie strip in the middle of rowcrops.

Lee has long employed conservation practices on his farm and is five years into his prairie strip project. Every year, he finds new native plants in the corridor.

Before the program started, I snapped a few photos of the common milkweed plants clustered around the farm entrance. They were starting to bloom.

A llama was checking me out. Lee raises lamb for the Iowa Food Cooperative, and explained that he bought Lennie a couple of years ago to be a guard llama for his sheep. (Apparently llamas will chase off coyotes or aggressive dogs.)

Tim Youngquist of Iowa State University, who helped Lee seed his land, was on hand to talk about the prairie strips program. He's on the left here. On the right is Jordan Giese, a graduate student who is researching the impact of prairie strips on bird populations. Jordan attached location devices to several pheasant on Lee's property and found that one of them sheltered in the prairie strip vegetation for much of the winter.

Tim and other ISU researchers have found "that by converting 10% of a crop-field to diverse, native perennial vegetation, farmers and landowners can reduce sediment movement off their field by 95 percent and total phosphorous and nitrogen lost through runoff by 90 and 85 percent, respectively." This conservation practice is not just for organic farms; "integrating small amounts of prairie into strategic locations within corn and soybean fields -- in the form of in-field contour buffer strips and edge-of-field filter strips -- can yield disproportionate benefits for soil, water, and biodiversity."

Tim brings this teaching tool to his prairie strip talks. Volunteers pull on the ropes to illustrate how shallow the roots are for Kentucky bluegrass or brome, compared to native prairie plants. For instance, compass plant and leadplant roots go more than ten feet underground, anchoring the soil and capturing more rainfall.

ISU's Prairie Strips website explains,

Grasses such as smooth brome, tall fescue, orchard grass, and Kentucky bluegrass are widely used to provide ground cover in agricultural areas of the U.S. Corn Belt, but they are relatively weak-stemmed and prone to laying flat under heavy rain. They are useful for grassed waterways that are intended to convey water while preventing erosion. In contrast, native tall-grass prairie communities are typically dominated by stiff-stemmed grasses and erect forbs (i.e., wildflowers) species that are less prone to collapse under heavy rain and more effective in providing resistance to water flow and sediment movement. [...]

While plantings of perennial monocultures are beneficial in keeping roots in the ground for the entire year, they will not have as diverse and abundant root systems as diverse plantings. Thus more time will be required to provide soil health benefits such as breaking up compaction, improving infiltration, and raising soil organic matter. For this reason, they are also less resilient to weather extremes.

Lee shared a little of his family farm's history and held up examples of tile used to drain fields in the early 20th century (the ceramic example) and today (plastic). Tiling contributes to dirty waterways in Iowa and downstream by moving rainwater and pollutants like nitrates quickly off the land.

Lee seeded his prairie strip on land that had formerly been a terrace designed to reduce runoff. He used a mix containing about 60 different prairie species, purchased from the Allendan Seed Company in Winterset. He has identified about 30 of those, finding new wildflowers every year.

The most diverse sections of his prairie strip are at the north and south ends. In the middle, the brome grass planted decades ago remains stubbornly dominant, as you can see in this picture. During our group outing, Tim and Lee discussed a possible spring burn to help knock back the brome next year.

Lee rotates crops, and this year, the field running alongside the prairie strip (on the right side of this photo) is in soybeans. The large group of yellow and orange flowers near the north end of the prairie strip are ox-eye, and beyond the strip, corn was already well above waist height.

Some of the soybean plants had small pink flowers open.

The farmer who planted Lee's beans this year accidentally planted some in the prairie strip. Some soybeans are growing in this photo alongside the bright yellow black-eyed Susans.

This colorful plant is unfortunately an invasive vetch, probably hairy vetch (cow vetch is a related species). There was a lot of vetch near the north end of Lee's prairie strip.

Turning to the native plants, quite a bit of hoary vervain is blooming in this area.

This one was new to me. I think it's an unusual pink variation of hoary vervain, though someone in the Iowa wildflower enthusiasts Facebook group suggested that it could be narrowleaf vervain instead.

Speaking of pink, lots of wild bergamot, also known as bee balm or horsemint, was blooming or on the verge of blooming.

These deeper pink flowers are purple prairie clover.

Sad to say, I was so excited to photograph other plants that I missed the patch of Virginia mountain mint Tim and Lee pointed out to some others in our group. But I did capture some wild quinine, which is one of Lee's favorites.

Staying with the white color scheme, here are some prairie sage plants.

Rattlesnake master was blooming in several parts of the prairie strip. The brown remnants of last year's rattlesnake master are visible to the lower right in this image.

I couldn't recall seeing Illinois bundleflower before, so was excited when Lee pointed out some patches of this native plant.

A closer look at Illinois bundleflower leaves:

More Illinois bundleflower blooming:

I've only seen windflower, also known as thimbleweed, a few times elsewhere. These plants are thriving on Lee's property.

Some windflowers are blooming, while others have seedheads forming in that characteristic thimble shape:

A closer look at one flower:

A lot of giant ragweed was growing the south end of the prairie strip. Lee's son was helping to pull up this native (but undesirable) plant before it blooms.

We missed the peak of the pale purple coneflowers.

I was wary of this plant, thinking it might be the dreaded wild parsnip. But it was in fact the native golden Alexanders, which bloomed a few weeks earlier.

Other plants had yet to bloom. Here's Lee's photograph of whorled milkweed, which he's seeing this year for the first time on his property. He called it "a new milkweed that doesn't look like milkweed!"

This stiff goldenrod will be blooming in August. I forgot to photograph some ironweed plants, which also hadn't begun flowering.

This common evening primrose plant on the left may not produce any flowers this year, as it's been ravaged by beetles. The black-eyed Susans were doing fine, though.

More cheery yellows: ox-eye (lower right) in full bloom, near black-eyed Susans.

The gray-headed coneflowers were out in force.

Mostly gray-headed coneflowers in the foreground; mostly ox-eye in the background.

Heading back to the north end of the prairie strip, Tim showed us a bird's nest embedded in the plants, a little ways off the ground. It didn't seem to be in current use; he speculated that red-winged blackbirds may have built this nest.

The post Iowa wildflower Wednesday: A thriving farm prairie strip appeared first on Bleeding Heartland.

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register, where this essay first appeared. He serves as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

Who doesn’t love butterflies, especially monarch butterflies?

Let me share several verbal bouquets I encountered in reading articles about monarchs. “Showy looks.” “Extraordinary migration.” “One of the natural world’s wonders,” and, “one of the continent’s most beloved insects.” Unfortunately, I also came across some very troubling terms, like “endangered,” “vulnerable populations,” “declining precipitously” and “teeter(ing) on the edge of collapse.” Suffice to say, it all captured my attention.

Monarchs have been in the news a great deal lately. Appropriately so.

They recently made the endangered classification compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, “the world’s most comprehensive scientific authority on the status of species,” according to the New York Times. If there are glimmers of optimism, however, it’s that we can actually do something about disturbing monarch trends. 

First, the devastating statistics. The number of Western monarchs, living west of the Rocky Mountains (not ours) fell 99.9 percent between the 1980s and 2021, from approximately 10 million butterflies in the 1980s to fewer than 2,000 in 2021. Wow!

Eastern monarchs (our butterflies), covering most of North America, dropped 84 percent between 1996 and 2014, a startling statistic, unfortunately not very current. An update, from July, 2022: “This population shrunk by between 22% and 72% over the past decade,” depending on the measurement method. Realizing this is a huge statistical range, overlapping slightly with the previous timeframe, regardless of precision, these numbers are simply dreadful.

Why is this happening? Experts say it’s a combination of factors… climate change, loss of essential milkweed plants, and habitat destruction of overwintering areas, most of which took place in Mexico and was halted years ago. Anna Walker, an etymologist who led the latest assessment, cites a relatively recent cause: farmers, particularly Midwestern farmers, planting crops genetically modified to withstand glyphosate, the herbicide in Roundup.

Accordingly, “glyphosate was sprayed over vast acreages in the Midwest that took out a lot of the milkweed plants that monarch caterpillars rely on,” notes Walker. That, plus climate change, which disrupts cycles and alters temperatures while boosting storms and droughts, can be catastrophic for monarchs and other endangered populations.

Please note, designation by scientists provides no legal protections for the species, no federal protection based on the Endangered Species Act, nor does it require anyone to behave differently. Two years ago, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service knew monarchs were threatened with extinction, it chose not to designate them as an endangered species. They stated monarchs were “precluded” from the list since they weren’t as much at risk as other species; there were other higher priorities. I trust this decision will be overturned soon.

So, now that we’re aware of the problem, what can be done? In 2015, the Obama administration launched efforts to plant milkweed along Interstate 35, from Texas to Minnesota.

The same year, Iowa organizations formed the Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium at Iowa State University to better understand and respond to the situation. This consortium now consists of 40 organizations – agricultural and conservation associations, agribusiness and utility companies, colleges and universities, and county, state, and federal agencies. IMCC’s goal, articulated in 2018, is to establish 480,000 to 830,000 acres of milkweed in Iowa by 2038, plans worthy of generous financial support.

Butterfly champions are already planting milkweed across our region, on the monarchs’ fly zone. We can, and should, all join in. There are up to a dozen milkweed varieties that flourish in the Midwest. Knowledgeable people recommend planting a variety, with at least some likely to thrive during any given year. To create a monarch haven, flowering plants are also needed to provide butterflies with an ample nectar supply.

Last point: Monarchs are a classic example of “a canary in the coal mine." What other species, perhaps not as beautiful as monarchs, are severely stressed by modern practices? One such specie may be humankind. I certainly hope I’m wrong about this.     

Top image: Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) on Allegheny blackberry (Rubus allegheniensis), photographed by Elizabeth Marilla in 2021.

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