This letter originally was published in the Des Moines Register on May 23rd, 2017

It was a big mistake to create the ‘Iowa Nutrient Research Center’

Kamyar Enshayan, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Letter to the Editor

I was serving on the advisory board of the Leopold Center when Iowa State University created yet another center.

It was big mistake to create the “Iowa Nutrient Research Center.” It renamed the tragedy of industrial agriculture (soil erosion, water pollution, deliberate evading of public health and labor laws by multinational meat packing plants or by absentee owned egg factories, public health threats from massive hog confinement operations, pesticides and fertilizer in drinking water, manure spills, etc. ) as simply a “nutrient” problem.

Clearly, nutrients leaking from modern agriculture is a symptom of a cropping system that is inherently leaky, meaning there isn’t a whole lot farmers can do to stop the leak. That leaky cropping system has been planned and incentivized by federal programs, shaped by global grain merchants who also happen to control all grain markets as well as seeds and inputs. It is well-documented that it is this system, this colonizing economy, that continues to lead to rural decline.

The only antidote to our situation is for us to work together to demand a different set of priorities from our land grant college of agriculture. Priorities that address land restoration, biodiversity conservation, health of rural communities, protection of soil and water, while creating a productive agriculture to serve Iowa and beyond. No one will do this for us; we will have to take the time to demand it and to make it happen.

— Kamyar Enshayan, director, Center for Energy & Environmental Education, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls