John Norwood: We need a modern vision for food, land, water; an Iowa Built to Last
In a few weeks, there is critical election for Iowa’s next secretary of agriculture. This office affects every Iowan who eats food or drinks water. The secretary’s role might be better described as the Secretary of Food, Land, and Water. It is quite possibly the most important state-level position when it comes to addressing climate change, changing consumer diets, and electrification, because how Iowa manages its agricultural systems for food, feed, energy, land, water, human and animal health will be watched by the country. And the world.
Common themes from Iowans as I've traveled the state include lack of safe drinking water, Big Ag’s stranglehold on the Iowa farmer, increasing land prices and absentee/foreign ownership of our agriculture lands and assets, and what can be done to save rural Iowa, including declining public schools, hospitals and infrastructure.
Iowa needs a modern vision for its highly productive but “unbalanced” agricultural system. We’re still operating under a 1950s “productivity mindset” that threatens the future productivity of the state and the health of our people. Today’s world calls for a “resiliency and diversity mindset” in addition to output. Our first resource obligation is to protect Iowa’s tremendous productivity for future generations while supporting our base of 70,000-plus farmers and providing new opportunities in farming for those not born on the farm.
The central pillar of my campaign is creating an “Iowa Built to Last.” This vision provides a framework for organizing our future priorities and uses a bottom-up approach of collecting input and ideas from everyday Iowans.
More:What Iowa ag secretary candidates Mike Naig & John Norwood say about eminent domain, ethanol
We’ll scale local food production that offers economic development opportunities for new farmers of all origins, drawing from the wisdom and teamwork of our Amish and Mennonite communities, while bringing common-sense solutions to poverty and hunger in the state. With a surplus of nearly $2 billion, we have a moral obligation, the creativity, the work ethic, and the financial strength to care for Iowans who don’t have enough nutritious food to eat.
Iowa can be a model of sustainability, drawing those from around the world who want to work hard and pursue a better life. We intend to use Iowa Built to Last as the catalyst and organizing framework to empower our 99 counties, the Legislature, and governor to create and pass a forward-looking Iowa farm bill.
My promise to Iowans: I will bring independence to the office, a sense of urgency, a desire for excellence, and a strategic mindset. Iowa can and should lead this country in building a flexible, diverse, resilient model of food and agriculture that is the envy of the world. Along the way, we’ll lead in the development of new markets for biofuels in segments of the “hard-to-electrify” transportation industry, such as airlines, marine, railroad, and long-haul trucking, while we restore and balance the biological systems that sustain our way of life.
John Norwood is the Democratic candidate for secretary of agriculture. He is founder and managing director of TBL Ventures LLC and a Polk County soil and water commissioner.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: John Norwood: We need a modern vision, an Iowa Built to Last
