The Iowa Soybean Association is electing board members now. All 17 candidates were asked to name the most important issue facing soybean farmers. No one named water quality, runoff, nutrient loss, or soil erosion. Nearly all of them named profits and markets. Their answers were in the June issue of their magazine Iowa Soybean Review.
The last paragraph is compelling. When the INRS was being developed, were point source folks at the table? I was under the assumption that they were forced to comply, and they didn’t really have a choice not to accept the conditions (regulations for them, and a voluntary approach for non-point sources of pollution), but maybe my assumption is incorrect?
Chris, you are the breath of fresh air (cool drink of water?) that we've needed for so long in this state! You're doing Paul Johnson's legacy proud. Plus you have a gift for wordsmithing that makes me chuckle as I read, which always helps the medicine go down. Thank you. PS My husband E. Paul Durrenberger and his former student Kendall Thu edited the book Pigs Profits and Rural Communities in the 1990s that predicted a lot of this mess, still a best seller at SUNY Press and Paul recently published The Dawn of Industrial Agriculture, Anthropology, Literature and History, both of which might interest you. He taught at U of I for 25 years.
Referencing non-point source, so we can all sleep at night, pretending we don't know where the pollution came from. The "Good Job Johnny" campaign continues, keeping issues off the ballot. We keep voting for the polluters representatives while those representatives keep the polluters flush with taxpayers' money in the name of "Best Management Practices". My serious question, when will this house of cards fall?
Thanks Chris! I believe a very similar book could be written about the "self-regulatory" status of agriculture in almost any other midwestern state. It certainly seems to be the case in Illinois. Agri-industrialists have done an exceedingly good job of advertising on NPR and elsewhere, portraying American agriculture in only the very, very best and pure light possible.
This is a really clarifying look at a fascinating and important topic. I'm looking forward to the thing that this prefaces. BTW, I've written a sort of creative-nonfiction historical essay on nitrogen that might be of interest to you.
My 87 year old Mother has always hated liars and would not tolerate any of us spewing untruths. The constant "farmers care about water quality" and "phosphorus has been reduced by _%, so all good now" are completely false. And they know it. There are a few farmers that care about the environment, but most don't look beyond next year. You'd think those who count on nature for their livelihood would be concerned how much of their black gold has ended up in the Gulf of Mexico. All Iowans (and rural Iowans in particular) are supposed to tolerate filthy water so pork barons and land owners with 10,000+ acres can push ethanol, high fructose corn syrup and bacon down everyone's throat ad nauseum. Something is seriously out of whack. As with most problems, greed is at the core.
Thank you so much for this work, Dr. Jones. I plan to give a copy of your book, The Swine Republic, to my friend and fellow Hardin County resident Liz for her birthday next month. Any way I could get it inscribed by you prior to giving it to her? I understand --not from her; she's too modest; but from your fishing buddy KM -- that a paper she and Laura Jackson authored years ago was one of your inspirations. Maybe a nice note from you would make her feel better about Iowa's sorry trajectory.
The Iowa Soybean Association is electing board members now. All 17 candidates were asked to name the most important issue facing soybean farmers. No one named water quality, runoff, nutrient loss, or soil erosion. Nearly all of them named profits and markets. Their answers were in the June issue of their magazine Iowa Soybean Review.
The last paragraph is compelling. When the INRS was being developed, were point source folks at the table? I was under the assumption that they were forced to comply, and they didn’t really have a choice not to accept the conditions (regulations for them, and a voluntary approach for non-point sources of pollution), but maybe my assumption is incorrect?
DNR was engaging the point source people at the time I believe.
Chris, you are the breath of fresh air (cool drink of water?) that we've needed for so long in this state! You're doing Paul Johnson's legacy proud. Plus you have a gift for wordsmithing that makes me chuckle as I read, which always helps the medicine go down. Thank you. PS My husband E. Paul Durrenberger and his former student Kendall Thu edited the book Pigs Profits and Rural Communities in the 1990s that predicted a lot of this mess, still a best seller at SUNY Press and Paul recently published The Dawn of Industrial Agriculture, Anthropology, Literature and History, both of which might interest you. He taught at U of I for 25 years.
Thanks Suzan! I will take a look at this book.
Referencing non-point source, so we can all sleep at night, pretending we don't know where the pollution came from. The "Good Job Johnny" campaign continues, keeping issues off the ballot. We keep voting for the polluters representatives while those representatives keep the polluters flush with taxpayers' money in the name of "Best Management Practices". My serious question, when will this house of cards fall?
your guess is as good as mine.
Just finished your book. Thanks for writing it. Such an important issue.
Thanks Chris! I believe a very similar book could be written about the "self-regulatory" status of agriculture in almost any other midwestern state. It certainly seems to be the case in Illinois. Agri-industrialists have done an exceedingly good job of advertising on NPR and elsewhere, portraying American agriculture in only the very, very best and pure light possible.
This is a really clarifying look at a fascinating and important topic. I'm looking forward to the thing that this prefaces. BTW, I've written a sort of creative-nonfiction historical essay on nitrogen that might be of interest to you.
https://apocalypse-confidential.com/2023/04/22/nitrogen/
Thanks Jed I will take a look.
My 87 year old Mother has always hated liars and would not tolerate any of us spewing untruths. The constant "farmers care about water quality" and "phosphorus has been reduced by _%, so all good now" are completely false. And they know it. There are a few farmers that care about the environment, but most don't look beyond next year. You'd think those who count on nature for their livelihood would be concerned how much of their black gold has ended up in the Gulf of Mexico. All Iowans (and rural Iowans in particular) are supposed to tolerate filthy water so pork barons and land owners with 10,000+ acres can push ethanol, high fructose corn syrup and bacon down everyone's throat ad nauseum. Something is seriously out of whack. As with most problems, greed is at the core.
Thank you so much for this work, Dr. Jones. I plan to give a copy of your book, The Swine Republic, to my friend and fellow Hardin County resident Liz for her birthday next month. Any way I could get it inscribed by you prior to giving it to her? I understand --not from her; she's too modest; but from your fishing buddy KM -- that a paper she and Laura Jackson authored years ago was one of your inspirations. Maybe a nice note from you would make her feel better about Iowa's sorry trajectory.