For What It's Worth

There's something happening here
But what it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is one of four separate agencies within USDA, with the others being the Economic Research Service (ERS), the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), and the National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS).

ARS has a budget of $1.7 billion and 7000 employees, 2000 of which are scientists with many of those at the Ph.D. level of training. Over the past century, many ARS researchers have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences for their distinguished contributions to agricultural science. They’ve produced some of the best agricultural research that the American taxpayer (and decidedly not the farmer and agribusiness) could buy.

There are 15 ‘National’ ARS laboratories and one of them is in Ames, Iowa. Back in the day, it was called the National Soil Tilth Laboratory until the then director, Dr. Jerry Hatfield, rebranded it as the National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment (NLAE). I knew Jerry (along with many other NLAE scientists) and was coauthor on a journal paper with him. NLAE scientists often work closely with ISU faculty, and some had dual appointments when I was still working. Not sure now. The staff page on the website lists only one person—the current director, Athanasios Papanicolaou.

I think it's time we stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?

ARS was in the news Sunday because a leaked USDA memo included an exhaustive list of banned words that must be searched when evaluating ARS agreements with other entities. This includes all the usual DEI, race, gender, and sexual suspects but also dozens of words related to weather, climate, water and environment in general. Making the list:

• Safe drinking water

• Tile drainage

• Water quality

• Clean water

• Environment

• Contaminants

• Non-point source pollution

This seems problematic, based on some screenshots I grabbed from the NLAE website.

That last banned word/phrase that I bulleted, non-point source pollution, is my favorite in this circumstance because I’m dying to see how Iowa’s Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig manages to manage our state’s flagship (actually rotting driftwood would be a more accurate characterization) water quality policy, the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, without saying ‘non-point source’. For what it’s worth, people in establishment agriculture quit saying the word ‘pollution’ a long time ago and I was advised to not use the word when I worked at Iowa Soybean. I’m not shitting you on that. And I don’t mind telling you that stuff I heard exit the mouths of big ag people back then (pre-2015) led me to believe the current word banning orgy was possible if not likely some day.

And what about good ol’ Jerry Hatfield, author of over 400 journal papers and the 2012 U.S. National Climate Assessment Midwest Technical Report and the proud namer of his former fiefdom, the National Laboratory for Agriculture and (Insert Banned Word Here), he’s MAGA now.

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

Speaking of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, I’ve noticed its academic support institute (Iowa Nutrient Research Center at ISU) in the news a couple of times lately. Both bits featured its director, Dr. Matt Helmers, a guy I knew pretty well and who always treated me respectfully and as a friend. The first piece was a ritualistic “are the nutrient strategies working?” story for ag media that has been reheated on the boiler plate so many times that even a dog would starve trying to chew the words. Why oh why people in academia dignify this sort of thing is mysterious to me, but for what it’s worth, a lot of things are mysterious to me. Article summary: everything’s working splendidly, and your water might be noticeably better in a century or two. At least by the standards of Trump’s USDA, the article did a use a few dirty words like ‘non-point’, ‘water quality’, and, holy mother of god, Gulf of Mexico, so you might want to steer clear of it lest you succumb to the woke agenda.

I couldn’t manage to summon any yuks for the second story. This one was about a scientific journal paper recently published in Nature Communications endorsing an increased nitrogen fertilizer rate for corn production in Iowa and Illinois. Helmers was a co-author, along with several other ISU and University of Illinois faculty. One was ISU faculty member Dermot Hayes, who is the Pioneer Chair in Agribusiness, is a consulting trade economist for the National Pork Producers Association and an advisor to Bruce Rastetter, the latter being the same guy that also employs former Iowa Democratic Governor Tom Vilsack’s son. For what it’s worth, not a small number of university faculty all over this country make more money on the side than what you might make on the back, front and center in several years of labor. Only rarely do these side monies get revealed to the public.

I must say the wordsmiths at ISU’s News Service did a masterful job of making this whole thing sound as innocuous as possible in a news release. I mean, it’s world class wordsmithing (me slow clapping now). Between the lines, its environment be damned, bushels and efficiency reigns. Only the paper itself tells you what you need to know: nitrogen losses (i.e. nitrate) from farmed fields are increasing faster than corn yields at the Economic Optimum Nitrogen Rate. I know from experience that people hate reading picture captions, but you gotta read this one, damn it.

These two graphs are from the Nature Communications paper. The graph on the left shows corn yields over time at the Economically Optimum Nitrogen Rate, which is increasing according to the authors. On the right is a graph showing trends in nitrogen losses. Note that the % change in slope of the trend lines is LARGER for the N losses than it is for the corn yields, more than double in fact. Red line is continuous corn, blue line is corn in rotation with soybeans.

This paper is definitively showing that environmental damage and water pollution is increasing as corn yields increase, largely because of increases in nitrogen fertilizer application rates. How convenient that the ISU News Service story and the researcher quotes omit this nugget, wouldn’t you say? And the FREAKING DIRECTOR OF THE IOWA NUTRIENT RESEARCH CENTER HAS ENDORSED IT WITH HIS NAME AS A COAUTHOR.

What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and they carrying signs
Mostly say, "Hooray for our side"

For what it’s worth, my instinct is to go easy on Helmers. I genuinely like the guy. The rest of them can go to hell in a handbasket for all I care. It’s what they deserve. But I’ve held out hope that Helmers would eventually see the light and do the right things. If Matt Helmers said the things that I say, this pathetic and corrupt house of cards underlying Iowa’s rotten roof of ag pollution might collapse. But no. It’s clear he doesn’t have the courage.

This sad story is a crystallization of the stinking rot that exists in American academia. What Trump and Project 2025 are doing to academia is dangerous and immoral and no democracy can survive without scholarship unharnessed from the winning political racehorse in the daily card. But for what it’s worth, people like these have made it all possible through their cynical self-aggrandization and willingness to sell out to industry scumbags. I grieve about what’s happening to our institutions; I do not grieve for some people that hopefully will get what they deserve. You are being swindled and misled by many in U.S. academia, and especially so in Iowa when it comes to your water.

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away

Is it any wonder that MAGA hates scholars, universities, and expertise in general? When you have academic people with a professed concern about water quality and environment encouraging farmers to pour on more polluting product to get a couple more bushels, why would you believe the medical researcher that says you should get a measles vaccination? Why would you put on a mask to prevent a COVID infection based on medical researcher’s findings? Why would you believe the climate researcher who says the earth is warming up? Why would you believe fluoride is safe and prevents cavities?

We better stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?

How the liberal establishment has been caught flatfooted post-election, and continues to remain paralyzed in its tracks, has to be the biggest liberal FAIL in world history. Anybody with the energy to open their eyes can see that the Project 2025 “reboot” of the country is happening before right before them. Yet there is still denial all around. Amongst politicians, only Bernie and AOC seem to have the read the news and have the courage and inspiration to talk about it. Here in Iowa, silver spoon democrats have risen to the moment with, wait for it, calls for term limits, always the loser’s battle cry. Count me as uninspired. Since Democrats clearly think they’re smarter than Republicans, maybe expend some intellectual energy to summon inspiring ideas? Just a thought.

Establishment Democrats are feeling no shame in GETTING OWNED, and not by Eisenhower or Reagan, but by the worst people in our country—Trump, Musk, Hegseth, Brenna Bird, etc. No shame at all.

You better stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?

I think Trump and the MAGA worldview are evil I want to fight. But for what it’s worth, I reserve my contempt for liberals or progressives or Democrats or whatever the appropriate label is at the moment. I’ve concluded that what many hip liberals crave is not freedom and justice and knowledge but relevance. Money brings all the relevance you need if you’re Republican. Yes, it brings relevance to Democrats too, but Democrats also want to be cool. To be cool requires something intangible that lies beyond a hard day’s work in the outdoors, or waiting tables, or running a hair salon, or shepherding a dying person back to health or to the other side. Sometimes an education or a degree can make you cool, but as the Democratic world has filled with degreed people, it’s usually not enough anymore.

You better stop
Now, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?

These days I spend about half my time at the edge of a town of 300 people. None of the people that live around my 3-room cabin give a rat’s ass about being cool. I like that about them. They’re also mostly MAGA, which I don’t like. This tiny town has the almost unbelievable good fortune to have both a public high school and a nice public library. The part time librarian had a Trump sign and a Blue Lives Matter sign decorating her home.

I see a kid occasionally leaving the school driving an Audi, presumably to one of the million-dollar homes on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. I don’t like that.

One woman I know lost a daughter recently after she was caught in a piece of farm machinery. Two townspeople have committed suicide by standing in front of one of the fast-moving freight trains that travel up and down the Mississippi River levee.

They have a ‘drive your tractor’ to school day at the high school; most bring in old Farmalls or their Grandpa’s antique International, but you see a few fancy Deeres. I love seeing a clean red Farmall drive by my cabin.

Like at least some of you, I want to fight what’s going on, but I don’t know who or how. So I plant trees. I have planted 11 bur oaks, 5 swamp white oaks, 1 white oak, 3 white pines, 6 peach trees, 2 apricot trees, 2 pear trees, 2 cherry trees, 1 plum tree, and 12 dwarf chestnut trees (several of those have died or ended up in the stomachs of deer). I’ve also cut down countless detestable mulberry and black locust trees, although the latter are good firewood.

If I could give you one piece of advice it would be this: buy a ‘Contender’ peach tree like the one on the left for $25; in 4 years it will look like the one on the right and provide you with 100 heavenly peaches.

My second piece of advice is buy books while you still can. Just lay off the classics at Iowa City secondhand stores because that’s my bailiwick.

My third piece of advice is to bear witness to what you’re seeing. Record it for your grandchildren so maybe it won’t happen again.

You better stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?

I see one of these almost every day of my life (the eagle, not the freight train, although I see a lot of the latter, too).

One of my earliest childhood memories is seeing a bald eagle in a cage at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. I doubt I saw another one until I was an adult.

Thank you, Rachel Carson, for bearing witness and having the courage to be inspired. I hope that someday, someone will look at my 11 bur oak trees and think similarly.

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