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It seems to me that if you’re a crop geneticist or an agronomist, you cannot drive across the Iowa countryside this time of year without being in awe of what you and your comrades in arms have done to the landscape.

A bizarrely uniform 8-foot-thick mat of black-green biomass layers the flats and the rolling hills alike, interrupted only by roads and water, some of the latter of which might generously be called rivers. The ancients could not possibly recognize this as Iowa or even planet earth, for that matter.

Rearranged DNA, steel, pvc tubing and huge amounts of fossil fuel dropped into this already-fertile corner of the earth produced a photosynthesis mine of unimaginable potential that generates the mother lode of organic carbon in the leaves, roots, stalks and most importantly, the seeds of Zea mays.

But there’s no free lunch in nature and I sometimes wonder if these same geneticists and agronomists are ever in an Oppenheimer-like awe of the environmental wreckage wrought by their single-minded selfish and hubristic fetish with the bushel. I know I’m in awe of it. Eradicating three ecosystems, man, it’s not just any scientist that can claim an accomplishment like that.

Iowa Capital Dispatch
August 15, 2022

This may come as news to Sen. Chuck Grassley and many of his fellow Republicans: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is a law enforcement agency. So is the Internal Revenue Service.

Most people already think of the FBI as an elite policing agency. But the IRS also investigates crime beyond tax evasion and fraud. Organized crime, drug trafficking, illegal gaming, money laundering and public corruption are just a few examples.

Republicans, including Grassley, claim to be champions of law enforcement and horrified by violence in America.

In fact, at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, most Republican senators entirely ignored or barely mentioned the actual focus of the hearing. Instead, they put on a show of how worried they are about violence and threats against police, judges, anti-abortion institutions and residents of certain cities that happen to be run by Democrats.

It is difficult for many of us to muster empathy for people accused of crimes who have complaints about the way police treated them.

This lack of empathy probably occurs because ordinary folks do not think they will be in situations like people accused of crimes.

If that includes you, allow me to introduce you to Anthony Watson, 43, of Coralville, and Jennifer Pritchard, also 43, of Fort Dodge.

Their experiences should be a wake-up call. We should ask government leaders, especially in Johnson and Hamilton counties, a bunch of “why” and “how” questions — questions about the events and decisions that led these two people to be jailed and their lives turned topsy-turvy.

You’ve probably heard that once again, establishment power has sided with the folks that own and raise hogs over the other 99.7 percent of the people that reside in Iowa.

I know, I know, knock me over with a feather.

In a 4-3 decision, the Iowa Supreme Court sided with New Fashion Pork and BWT Holdings in a lawsuit (1) filed against them by some guy named Gordon Garrison who had the wild idea that water on his property, which bordered that of the defendants, should be unpolluted by the defendants’ hog waste.

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.

Iowa Capital Dispatch
June 27, 2022

Iowans’ ability to stay informed about what’s happening in the state Legislature took another body blow recently – and lawmakers aren’t even in session.

The latest smackdown on open government came in the Iowa Supreme Court’s recent ruling that also eliminated the right to abortion in the state constitution. Most people, understandably, overlooked the part of the ruling dealing with legislative procedure – specifically the constitutional requirement that bills being debated in the Legislature address a single subject.

Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, however, didn’t miss it.

Friday, June 17, 2022

The ag propagandists lack of creativity is more than balanced by their relentlessness and the fact that they are unburdened by shame.

Imagine if the Energizer bunny copulates (he is a rabbit, after all) with all the killer rabbits from the '72 horror movie "The Night of the Lepus" (mutant rabbits terrorize Janet Leigh and DeForest Kelly) and their horde of offspring stampede the countryside devouring the truth. Or something like that.

Take phosphorus, for example.

Our secretary of agriculture was recently quoted saying: "We've come a long way on our phosphorus reduction goals in the state of Iowa due to a lot of management practices that have been put in place, cover crops, no-till, conservation tillage in the state of Iowa" (1).

And, not to be outdone, one-time secretary of agriculture hopeful and Iowa farmer Ray Gaesser was quoted saying in an EPA roundtable meeting that “Iowa has reduced phosphorus losses by 27 percent" (2).

Reminds me of an old joke about Minnesota and Iowa and manure and the punch line is: "Mr. RabBIT will soon be here with the shit."

These statements are detached from reality.

Here's an example of the hare-brained "conservation" the ag spokespeople say has reduced Iowa phosphorus levels 27 percent.

There is not a shred of water quality data that shows phosphorus levels in our streams to be declining over the long haul, and in fact, the opposite is probably occurring (graphs at the bottom).

Here we are, well into year three of the effects and after-effects of Covid.

An oft-heard comment during this time has come from people who believe government should simply butt out. These people believe government should leave it to individuals, and parents, to decide what is best for themselves and their children.

“I trust Iowans to do the right thing,” Gov. Kim Reynolds has said multiple times.

But when other issues come up, there is evidence some of these same people want to impose their interpretation of what is right on other individuals and parents who may have different views from theirs of what is proper.

While we may not live in the communities where these new controversies are bubbling, we all should be troubled by these efforts just as much as if these efforts were occurring in our backyards.

One of these controversies is taking root in Baxter, a Jasper County town of 1,100 people. It is home to the Baxter Community School District, which had an enrollment of 475 students during the past academic year.

by Kathie Obradovich, Iowa Capital Dispatch
June 13, 2022

We all know what courage looks like. It’s at the core of our favorite stories. It’s central to the plots in most movies and television shows. It’s the backbone of the legends we cherish from history and from daily life.

Political courage is not so familiar. It’s an oxymoron these days, or one of those blue-moon phenomena that only happen when a politician is about to leave office forever. Compromise is a dirty word, and elected officials who stand up for what they believe against a party priority or work across the aisle to get things done face the mortality of their careers.

We saw both kinds of courage in prime time on Thursday night at the first public hearing of the U.S. House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Landus staff re-enacting Des Moines' 'we surrender' moment in demonstration plot negotiations. Image from DMWW twitter account.

I’m sometimes asked how the ideas keep coming for this blog.

Believe me when I tell you this: writing this stuff is as easy as falling off a log backwards.

As we say in the biz, when we see some really interesting data: this excrement just writes itself.

Last week ag retailer Landus announced (1, 2) that an area of land in Des Moines’ Water Works (DMWW) Park will be used as a demonstration plot that will be planted with corn, soybeans and cover crops.