The news can be daunting. A warming climate is worsening acute droughts in Africa and Central America. Food security is tenuous. It is the source of horrible conflict in places like Sudan. Assistance programs from the US and Europe are being curtailed. Tales of woe around food and agriculture are of a biblical scale.
Then a dash of hope shoots through. We came across a story in The New York Times last weekend about Hybrid Poultry Farm and the World Poultry Foundation breeding a better chicken in Zambia. It plumps up quickly plus lays eggs daily using less water than a conventional laying hen, and resists disease better.
Farmers beset by drought are eager to adapt to the hybrid chickens. They are eating better and developing viable businesses based around a better bird.
It’s an example of using science to improve health, advance economies and promote social stability. Drought-resistant corn has been a boon to Northwest Iowa farmers struggling under fairly severe dry spells the past five years — the yields have been tremendous.
Many of us grow weary with the thought of a growing world population living on diminishing resources. The hybrid chicken from Zambia is just another example of lifting people out of food poverty using proven technology. We know we can protect hens from disease through vaccines if we deploy them (we do not). We can protect ourselves from the measles, too.
Science is helping to moderate energy costs by rolling out more efficient wind turbines and solar arrays. Soil research at Iowa State University helps us use less herbicides and fertilizers if we choose to pay attention. We can be massively productive while not washing the farm down the river if we follow the science.
Right now, people in Zambia are improving their lot based on selecting the right characteristics in chickens that are more robust and require fewer resources. We can improve our lot in Iowa by investing more in research, not less. Iowa State University is an agronomy and animal science powerhouse because of planned federal and state support. The amount of economic activity generated in Ames over the past century is hard to calculate but someone in Heady Hall (ag econ) probably could.
Likewise, the University of Iowa has made0 many important contributions to medicine, physics and engineering because of integrated federal and state support.
Research in places like Ames and Iowa City leads to better lives in Zambia and, we hope, lasting friendship and economic opportunities. The computer was invented in Ames. We have a tradition that we are not supporting like we should. Feeding the world means embracing sound science and supporting federal research on campus.
Business people who vote Republican are beginning to acknowledge that we depend on immigrants to keep our economy growing. They have a hard time claiming now that the border is porous under President Trump. In fact, the border surge was tamped down by the Biden Administration with Mexico’s vital collaboration.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican lion of the Judiciary Committee, has insisted that immigrants cannot be rationalized until the border is secure. Trump maintains that it is. “That excuse no longer exists,” said Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican farmer from Washington state. Could this be an opportunity for bipartisan common sense mixed with compassion?
Newhouse was among a group of politicians who held a news conference last week to protect agricultural workers in particular. They were talking about guest worker expansions and the like. Republican Maria Salazar of Miami put up a bill through the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus that seeks to normalize the status of undocumented workers. “That’s the Christian thing to do, that’s the right thing to do, that’s the Republican thing to do,” she said, according to The New York Times.
Nearly everyone wants to see Dreamers, who were brought here as toddlers, work an earned pathway to citizenship. The great majority do not want to split up clean-living families just for the sake of deportation. Criminals should be deported to their country of origin following due process.
It’s good to see some Republicans peeking out from behind the curtains into the daylight of reality. Trump has no intention of deporting all undocumented people from Storm Lake because he can’t. We appreciate that some in the GOP are coming to terms with our actual labor force needs.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins came to Iowa this week to reassure agribusiness that the Trump Administration will provide cover for losses in ag export markets as casualties of a malt-front trade war. Farmers struggling with revenue the past couple years are rightfully nervous how tariffs on China, Canada, Mexico and anybody else who comes into Trump’s crosshairs will affect their bottom lines.
Rollins has said that her two immediate priorities are managing avian flu and protecting producers from tariff impacts.
During his first term Trump spent close to $70 billion on trade replacement and disasters to farmers and ag businesses, most of which came through the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation. Rollins may draw up to $30 billion annually through the CCC. Trump appears to be more aggressive in his use of tariffs than he was the first time around. China has already imposed tariffs on several agricultural commodities including pork and soy.
The last trade war with China resulted in a permanent loss to our export markets, with Brazil and Argentina emerging as more reliable suppliers. This trade war could bury the idea of exports being so important to Iowa farmers. That impact will last far beyond some Trump Bump checks that keep them fed for the time being.
Rollins’s early visit to Iowa is laying the groundwork for the initial shock and awe for the trade war, no doubt. She is rallying support in a key area of MAGA support: the Tall Corn State. Here, the leaders have been preaching the virtues of feeding the world for 50 years. Now we are hoping for a decent welfare check.
The Iowa Senate passed a bill last week that gives immunity to chemical companies if their labels contain whatever warning the Environmental Protection Agency deems appropriate. It is not a blanket immunity because you probably can’t get away with that even in chemical-crazy Iowa. The labeling bill sets limits.
Bayer has had enough of it. It set aside $16 billion for claims against Roundup (glyphosate) and already has spent $10 billion of that, spokesperson Jess Christianson told Iowa Capital Dispatch. “The reality is that it doesn’t matter if you’re a big multinational company, like a Bayer Crop Science, or a mid size or a startup company — the math is the math,” Christiansen said. “You can only endure so much loss before you have to make a tough decision … we can’t continue to go down the path we’re going.”
Bayer is tired of getting sued over cancer claims it denies but juries find credible. The facts do not appear to be working out well for Bayer, so it seeks to change the law if not the facts that glyphosate can be harmful in ways that we cannot yet appreciate. It also appears to be losing its efficacy against certain weeds. Bayer bought a setting sun when it purchased Monsanto. It is asking legislators to arrange a softer landing as claims mount and markets become more challenging.
Nothing ultimately will protect Bayer from its decision to buy Monsanto. State legislators should recognize that offering up a limited immunity exposes them as lackeys for foreign corporate conglomerates. We are handing away our franchise again. It could become a potent political weapon if the Democrats have their wits about them. Republicans didn’t need to do this. They already have the chemical lobby in their court. This one is gratuitous.
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