Iowa It was a fine fall day last Thursday as we breathed in the smell of manure from Ames to Storm Lake. The week before, our noses told us in the dark when we hit the Iowa state line. As we looked at the bounty rolling in, we thought for the millionth time that this should be the richest place on Earth.
I wish this column was not so on point. Yes, this is us. Why I was proud to have moved here some thirty years ago. Don’t think I would make the same decision as a young person.
You have brought up a topic that had me going. When I left the Farm in Sibley that I grew up on in 1968, it was being farmed the way my Grandfather had farmed since 1927. I was not needed for labor and left Iowa. I will inherit this farm in 2024 and I am appalled by the way it is being treated.
My Grandfather practiced diversity in livestock production and also Crop Rotation. Each day the manure was shoveled out out the milking barn and the hog feed floor. This manure was spread on the fields. Raising oats and alfalfa along with corn and soybeans. The bedding pile in the barn yard where the milk cows hung out until they were milked again in the morning was cleaned up and spread on the oat stubble just after oats harvest. The other grasses that were sown with the oats were prospering after the combine harvested the oats. This gave the cows late summer grazing on new growth. Purchase of chemicals was at a minimum since organic matter from the harvest and the fresh manure nourished the soil
I find that now, it is entirely corn base and the Oceola Dairy harvests it all as silage and hauls it away. No organic, no manure, no rotation. This is Extractive farming at its worst. The fine soil is being destroyed. No one seems to realize that there is an end date to this kind of behavior.
They are not going to like it when my Sister and I return to North West Iowa
Makes me want to cry. I grew up in Iowa but left for the east coast for work. I return to visit family frequently, and you speak the truth. My mother-in-law is in assisted living. After they sold the company 3 times raking off all the profits they closed and put 80- and 90-year-olds on the street to find other accommodations. They had to leave their hometown, the town square they could walk around with their walkers, and their friends. It’s cruel.
amen, amen young art, and at the end of all this pollution of des moines drinking water and the former abundant fishery at the estuary of the Mississippi now known as the DEAD ZONE...
I wish this column was not so on point. Yes, this is us. Why I was proud to have moved here some thirty years ago. Don’t think I would make the same decision as a young person.
You have brought up a topic that had me going. When I left the Farm in Sibley that I grew up on in 1968, it was being farmed the way my Grandfather had farmed since 1927. I was not needed for labor and left Iowa. I will inherit this farm in 2024 and I am appalled by the way it is being treated.
My Grandfather practiced diversity in livestock production and also Crop Rotation. Each day the manure was shoveled out out the milking barn and the hog feed floor. This manure was spread on the fields. Raising oats and alfalfa along with corn and soybeans. The bedding pile in the barn yard where the milk cows hung out until they were milked again in the morning was cleaned up and spread on the oat stubble just after oats harvest. The other grasses that were sown with the oats were prospering after the combine harvested the oats. This gave the cows late summer grazing on new growth. Purchase of chemicals was at a minimum since organic matter from the harvest and the fresh manure nourished the soil
I find that now, it is entirely corn base and the Oceola Dairy harvests it all as silage and hauls it away. No organic, no manure, no rotation. This is Extractive farming at its worst. The fine soil is being destroyed. No one seems to realize that there is an end date to this kind of behavior.
They are not going to like it when my Sister and I return to North West Iowa
Well said. Minnesotans, btw, don't make any more money than Iowans. We just have a lot more healthcare CEOs to average into our numbers.
Makes me want to cry. I grew up in Iowa but left for the east coast for work. I return to visit family frequently, and you speak the truth. My mother-in-law is in assisted living. After they sold the company 3 times raking off all the profits they closed and put 80- and 90-year-olds on the street to find other accommodations. They had to leave their hometown, the town square they could walk around with their walkers, and their friends. It’s cruel.
A life-long Iowan, who wishes I could argue with your spot-on observations.
amen, amen young art, and at the end of all this pollution of des moines drinking water and the former abundant fishery at the estuary of the Mississippi now known as the DEAD ZONE...