Primary Election Date: 06/08/2010
General Election Date: 11/02/2010

Who Am I?

I grew up on a family dairy farm in Minnesota, and helped with the daily operation from an early age. During high school I started milking at 4:00 a.m. before going to school.

After finishing a B.A. degree in music and philosophy, I started graduate school to study trumpet performance. I left graduate school to run the family farm with my brothers, but later returned for a doctorate in agronomy with a concentration in soil fertility.

My degree led to a job with the USDA in Washington D.C., where I became the National Program Leader for Soil Science for the USDA Extension Service. In that position I worked on national policy issues in agriculture. In 1992, I returned to farming in the Midwest.

My wife, Susan, and I own and operate a 450-acre, grass-based dairy farm in southeast Iowa, milking 80 cows. We produce and process all of our organic dairy products on the farm, and sell our own brand of milk, yogurt, ice cream, and cheese locally.

In my free time I often host classes and tour groups on my farm. Students and other visitors learn about our sustainable farming techniques, and our progress towards making our farm more energy-efficient and carbon neutral. For example, we use a solar-powered water pumping system to water our cows in the pastures. Solar power electrifies our fences. Solar panels on our on-farm dairy processing facility produce hot water for our dairy operation. We are working on plans to install a wind turbine on the farm to produce our electricity.

I have written and spoken extensively in Iowa and throughout the country on issues related to sustainable farming and agricultural policy. I am just now putting the finishing touches on a book about my vision for the future of agriculture, which will be published later this month. I have committed the proceeds from my book to my campaign.

Why Am I Running?

I am running for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture because I believe we need new vision and leadership to create a prosperous future for Iowa agriculture. Agriculture faces a number of major challenges that we are not prepared for. We need strong leadership to help Iowans and farmers begin to address these challenges before they turn into real problems for farmers and consumers alike.

I want to help make Iowa agriculture more resilient, sustainable and energy-independent. Iowa is a major agricultural state where much of our national agricultural policy starts, and Iowans have been very influential in shaping that policy. For example, US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is a former governor of Iowa, and Senator Tom Harkin has been a national leader in agricultural policy, and remains on the Senate Agriculture Committee, which he chaired until recently.

I am running on a platform that includes reinstating local control over agricultural practices and expanding the production of local food. Iowa imports most of the $8 billion a year spent on food. More local food production will create jobs in rural Iowa and provide food that is fresher, healthier, and safer.

I will be an advocate for a return to local control for the siting of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), so that local communities are able to exercise basic democratic rights to protect their air and water quality, property rights, and general quality of life. I will also promote the adoption of more sustainable farming systems that are profitable, environmentally sound, and socially responsible.

Most importantly, I will be a leader in innovative energy solutions for agriculture. There is a lot that we can do to make farming more resilient, energy-efficient and energy self-sufficient. We need to begin now to develop and adopt technologies that will sustainably power agriculture in the coming century. I will promote policies to encourage installation of mid-size wind turbines on farms and rural properties all across Iowa, to provide distributed power production and contribute to our rural economy. I will also advocate for development of the next generation of biofuels, which use sustainable perennial cropping systems and produce fuels on-farm to power farms, so that family farms will be able to survive and thrive in the era of peak oil.

As Secretary of Agriculture I will also fight to break up corporate monopolies in agricultural markets and work to put more money in the pockets of family farmers.

Hold Me Accountable!

I am running for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture to help create a prosperous future for our state. Iowa needs new solutions to the challenges of rising energy costs, polluted air and water, and predatory corporate monopolies. My vision for Iowa food and agriculture:

Encourage the installation of farmer-owned, mid-size wind turbines on farms all across Iowa, to power farms and help to power the rest of Iowa. I will lead in advocating for feed-in tariffs, which are agreements with power companies that will allow farmers and other landowners to sell their excess power, finance their turbines, and make a profit from their power generation.

Make Iowa farms more energy self-sufficient and put more biofuel profits in farmers’ pockets by refocusing Iowa’s biofuel investment on new technologies that will allow farmers to produce biofuels on the farm to power farm equipment, and sell the excess for consumer use.

Create more jobs and economic development by supporting local food production. We can grow more of what we eat in Iowa. Locally-grown food can be fresher, safer and healthier for consumers, and will provide jobs to produce it. I will reestablish the Iowa Food Policy Council to provide guidance on how to connect farmers to state institutional food purchases and greater access to consumer demand for fresh, locally-grown produce.

We need Teddy Roosevelt-style trust busting to break up corporate monopolies and restore competition to agricultural markets. I will work with Iowa’s Attorney General and the Justice Department to expose predatory practices and stop them.

Reestablish local control over CAFOs, and regulate them to keep dangerous pollutants out of our air and water, and protect the health, quality of life, and property values of our citizens.

Promote wider use of perennial and cover crops to keep Iowa’s rich soils and fertilizer nutrients from washing into our rivers.

My DFA values:

Many democratic candidates and politicians in Iowa have been beholden to the special interests of Big Agriculture. Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Koch Industries and the Farm Bureau are just a few that are trying to buy Iowa politicians to further their interests. I will not take contributions from them and will work to expose them. They want to maintain the status quo in agriculture, and resist making the changes necessary to insure that independent family farms can survive and thrive in the future. In my campaign I am drawing attention to the involvement of big agribusiness in our state’s politics and policies. Their 527 organizations are the agricultural equivalent of the infamous swift boat veterans, using nasty political tactics to push forward their agenda to the detriment of consumers and farmers.

My Campaign is People-Powered!

We are creating a statewide team of volunteers and activists to help us spread our message across the state and to help us earn media. They are enthusiastic about our message. We are organizing a state-wide letter-to-the-editor campaign that will help give my campaign a continual and statewide presence in the media. There are dozens of daily and hundreds of weekly newspapers in Iowa and we are working to have letters from our supporters in as many as possible between now and the election. We are also taking our message online with blog posts written by me and by volunteer netroots activists.

I am working with local activist groups to set up a series of talks based on themes discussed in my book, and on other issues related to our campaign and Iowa agriculture. These events will help us engage activists and earn media.

In Iowa we have a coordinated campaign which is run by our state party and which focuses on identifying Democratic voters, encouraging early voting, and turning voters out on Election Day. This program, which our campaign is contributing to financially, started in June. Since it is one big team effort, our campaign will encourage activists excited about our campaign to work with our state party to knock on doors and make phone calls. The state party creates and organizes a massive grassroots organization. To supplement the Iowa Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign we have an intensive operation to use social media and organize grassroots activists who are particularly excited about our campaign.