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Seedy business: A sustainable-ag champion gets plowed under at Iowa State

Posted by Tom Philpott at 8:13 AM on 02 Nov 2005

Plunked down in the land of huge, chemical-addicted grain farms and the nation's greatest concentration of hog feedlots, Iowa State University's Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture has always had a tough row to hoe.

Imagine trying to operate an Anti-Cronyism League from Bush's West Wing, and you get an idea of what the Leopold Center is up against. Industrial agriculture runs the show in Iowa, sustained by regular infusions of federal cash and its government-sanctioned ability to "externalize" the messes it creates. The state grabbed $12.5 billion in federal agriculture subsidies between 1995 and 2004 -- second only to Bush's own home state. Iowa leads all states in hog production: It churned out 14.5 million pigs in 2001 alone, the vast majority from stuffed, environmentally and socially ruinous CAFOs (confined-animal feeding operations).

Yet since springing to life in 1987 by fiat of the Iowa legislature -- funded ingeniously by state taxes on nitrogen fertilizer and pesticide -- the Leopold Center has become an invaluable national resource for critics of industrial agriculture and seekers of new alternatives.

Now, however, a sudden purge at the top has called the Center's much-prized independence from industrial agriculture into question.


The Leopold Center operates under the authority of Iowa State University's College of Agriculture. Last Friday, the college issued a press release announcing that the Leopold Center's director of five years, Fred Kirschenmann, had "accepted a new leadership role as a distinguished fellow of the center."

The college went on to state that it had named an interim director, effective Nov. 1.

Kirschenmann himself, however, tells a more interesting tale than what's contained in the press release's bland prose. He says his move from director to "distinguished fellow" came suddenly and without his own input.

"On Wednesday I received a letter from the interim dean asking me to resign by Friday and decide by then if I would accept the position of distinguished fellow at the center," Kirschenmann told me yesterday.

"I wrote her back telling her I thought she was moving too fast, that there wouldn't be time for a smooth transition. She wrote back that it was a done deal -- she had already named a new director."
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complete article here

I was NAUSEATED reading about how Corporate Cronyism is so wantonly destroying this country. (I had just finished listening to a Noam Chomsky lecture that had touched on that topic, and I was already 'primed').

pnorman

It's the main reason why I no longer eat beef and pork. I do not want to support this industry that is destroying rural America.

Support your local sustainable farmer. I'm sure that if you checked around your local farmers market you will find some local farmer who sells steroid free/hormone free, grass/grain fed beef and pork. The price might be a little higher if you are just buying a couple of cuts of meat. But if you have the freezer space and the money up front you can save yourself some long term cash by purchasing a quarter or side of beef. We are fortunate to have a freezer, and just picked up a quarter (aprox 150#) of beef for the grand total of $1.80/lb.

Doing this supports your local farmer, and helps continue local sustainable family agriculture in your area. It also sends a message to the factory farmers that there are other options. And it benefits you. You get cheaper meat, healthier meat free of steroids hormones and antibiotics. And damn, that steak is tasty. When I first started buying bulk beef from a local sustainable farmer, the taste took me back to my childhood forty years ago. Thick tasty meat, like beef is supposed to be, not that rubbery bland mass of mystery meat in your local food chain's freezer.