Iowa Stubborn—Reducing Carbon on a Major Scale
by Ralph Petersen
Milkweed illustration by Penelope Gordon Kennedy
“Oh, there’s nothing half-way about the Iowa way…”. So goes the first line in the first song, “Iowa Stubborn” from The Music Man. Stubborn though Iowa’s famous farmers may be, they have not fared well over the years since 1957 when Meredith Willson composed and scripted his musical. Buena Vista County in northwest Iowa has lost half its farmers over these six-plus decades, according to a recent New York Times opinion piece by Art Cullen, Storm Lake Times editor and Pulitzer Prize winning editorial writer. Instead, residents of the now ethnically diverse community of Storm Lake, located in Buena Vista County, mostly work in the meat-packing operation owned by Tyson Foods, Inc., earning wages that have not kept pace with inflation.
Rural communities have been hit hard over the years by unsustainable agribusiness practices—corporate consolidations, high chemical and seed costs and government subsidies that work against small independent growers. Now, due to a confluence of factors like the pandemic, recurring floods, extreme winds, and farming practices that have left Iowa’s rivers running flush with agricultural runoff, residents and politicians alike are recognizing our food system’s vulnerabilities. A different approach might in fact be good for business and the environment alike.
The times they are a-changin’. Bob Dylan first sang this in 1964, and Cullen suggests it’s true today: the time is ripe for an Iowa agriculture reboot. Rural roots run deep and Cullen thinks Iowan Tom Vilsack, President Biden’s recently confirmed nominee for Secretary of Agriculture, will help sow fresh seeds for rural American farmers to revitalize their communities. Vilsack’s fervent support for resilient or regenerative agriculture practices favor healthy ecosystems through diverse crop rotations, use of grasses and grazing to reduce fertilizer and herbicide applications. Carbon markets that support such practices and renewable energy installations can bring well-paying jobs to rural farming communities.
Time will tell if the government can come through for the little guy this time around. Vilsack received plenty of criticism for cozy relations with corporate agricultural players while serving as Iowa’s 40th governor and Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture.
Cullen opines favorably on Vilsack’s suggestion for using subsidies to help farmers push an agriculture and food system transformation to secure sustainability and climate resilience. Some agribusinesses and associated politicians are already supporting decarbonization. There are profits to be made using biofeed stocks to create hydrogen fuels, soil to be salvaged by diversifying crop strategies, animal and human health and well-being to be ensured by integrating animals into farming systems, and land that can be used to generate renewable electricity.
Cullen’s opinion piece, however, also describes the threats associated with recent extreme weather events like flooding in 2019 and last spring’s 140 mph Derecho winds that destroyed 14 million acres of crops. A video from the NASA Goddard Space Research center shows that the Great Plains and Southwest are in the midst of a multi-decade drought.
Hallmarks seen in the maps above include multiple years of low precipitation (especially brown areas over northern Iowa and southern Minnesota, Cullen’s home region) and warmer than usual temperatures (red areas covering much of the Great Plains) for much of the past 30 years. There is little reason to expect that these weather trends will change in the near future. Resilient agriculture responses to these trends need to be developed and soon. With Tom Vilsack as Agriculture Secretary, the Biden administration really took “Ought to give Iowa a try!” to heart.
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