Recently, I have heard some environmentalists complain about using tax payer money to clean up the environment. They say, “let the polluters pay,” meaning farmers should pay the entire bill. Really? Wow, talk about denying, deflecting, and defending. It is my sincere hope that people study the impacts of climate change and its effect on nitrogen and phosphorus runoff before denying culpability. I hope they realize they are part of the problem and need to be part of the solution; unless, of course, these environmentalists deny climate change is …
More hired men or more tractors?
Hybrid corn, a one-row corn picker and a hand-tied pickup hay baler were just a few firsts pioneered in Shelby County, Iowa, by my grandpa, Will Buman. By 1950, Grandpa, was farming over 1,000 acres of land. For one farmer with 3 sons and one hired man, that was a lot of land. But let me qualify that. Grandpa also owned 6 tractors; more than one tractor per field hand. And at the time, six tractors definitely exceeded the average farmer. Grandpa understood that technology, not workers, increased production. Grandpa also understood farming …
Better than average?
“In the field of social psychology, illusory superiority is a cognitive bias whereby a person overestimates their own qualities and abilities, in relation to the same qualities and abilities of other persons.” The Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll is always fascinating. But one question was especially illuminating in this year’s survey. Farmers were asked, “Compared to other farm operations in your area, how well do you think your farm operation is performing in controlling soil erosion?” Seventeen percent (17%) rated themselves far above …
New packaging for soil erosion
“With respect to public awareness...there has been a steady decline in interest in soil conservation. There is a pervasive belief amongst all of these stakeholders that…we need to move on. A sense of fatigue has set in.” Dr. David Lobb In the 1980’s, there was a deliberate decision by conservation agencies to change the narrative from soil erosion to water quality. Working for one of these conservation agencies, I remember voicing my frustration to management. We are not even close to solving the problem of soil erosion, I argued. So why …
Big challenges to cut nitrate loading
Efforts are needed beyond the 4R's, including no-till or strip till, controlled drainage, cover crops, wetlands, buffers and landowner help. Reprinted with permission of Corn+Soybean Digest. In a blog post this spring, Tom Buman laid out the huge challenge facing Iowa farmers to voluntarily meet nitrogen loading reduction goals (https://precisionconservation.com/nitrogen-problem-numbers/). Noting that models demonstrate agriculture is responsible for 70 percent of the nitrogen and phosphorus load delivered to the Gulf of Mexico, Buman, took a …
Structural Practices vs. Management Practices
Throughout my career I have vacillated in my support of structural practices versus management practices. You could say that I was fickle, or that I didn’t have a good grasp of the material. But in hindsight, I see my support, or non-support, depended on where I was working at the time. Early in my career, I worked in Eastern Iowa, where shallow to bedrock soils prompted us to focus more on management practices such as no-till and contour strip-cropping. From Eastern Iowa, I moved across the state to a western Iowa county where terraces and …