Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig says one of the reasons he’s seeking re-election is to remind Iowans that agriculture has been “one of the pillars” of Iowa’s economy and will play an important role in its future.
“It’s getting a little bit flipped in reverse right now where people are kind of maybe more prone to blame agriculture or blame farmers for some of the challenges in our state,” Naig said. “I want to flip that.”
Naig has been state ag secretary since March of 2018. His opponent in this year’s election is Democrat Chris Jones, who has called the race a referendum on water quality. During a speech yesterday to a group of farmers from the Marshalltown area, Naig supplied this response. “Let’s be clear about this. Clean water is non-negotiable. Every Iowan deserves access to clean water,” Naig said. “…Quit the blame game and saying it’s all an ‘urban’ issue. It’s all a ‘rural’ issue, right? It’s an ‘us’ issue…We ought to work upstream and downstream to improve water quality.”
Naig later told reporters the state approach to water quality issues should be science based. “What we should be looking for is the actual causes and working together to find a real solution,” Naig said.
Naig pointed to a bill Governor Reynolds signed in 2018, which identified a dedicated funding source for water quality initiatives, but he said it wasn’t “ramped up” until 2021 and 2022. “Since that time we’ve had record setting conservation adoption,” Naig said. “…We’re now getting to the place where we’re exceeding our budget for this and what’s been allocated by the state and I will be asking for different resources both for cover crops, because I think we’re showing demand, but also for our working lands cattle and conservation program.” That program is providing grants to farmers in 28 counties for restoring pastures and Naig indicated he’d like to take the effort statewide to build up Iowa’s cattle herd.
Naig made campaign stops yesterday at farms near Nevada, Marshalltown and Coggin.