Three northern Iowa farmers have formed a non-profit to spread the message that cover crops and buffer strips along waterways are essential to improving Iowa’s water quality.
They call themselves “The Lobe Rangers” because they all farm in the Des Moines Lobe, some of the most fertile farmland in Iowa. Zach Smith, a fifth-generation farmer from Lake Mills, said the voluntary approach to preventing soil and nutrient runoff from farmland, the “Nutrient Reduction Strategy” state officials released in 2013, isn’t working. “I was excited. I remember going to the first rollout meetings for it. I had just adopted strip till in 2011 and was adopting cover crops in 2013 and 2014 and I thought this is great,” Smith said. “Then time went on and there were just not that many folks that followed along because it’s a voluntary program. There are no deadlines or consequences for not doing so.”
Matt Borman, a fifth-generation farmer from Algona, said the voluntary approach isn’t getting the kind of results that are needed to improve water quality statewide. “There’s a lot of farmers that are doing conservation practices that are getting fed up that we’re not seeing enough adoption and so about the fall of 2023 I started a peer group to try to get a group of farmers together that feel the same way,” Borman said. “…At some point, somebody had to take the lead.”
The group lauched a series of videos online in March. They plant cover crops that keep soil in place during the winter, with targeted applications of fertilizer during the growing season and all three say they’re getting the same or better yields than before those practices were adopted. James Hepp, a first generation farmer from Rockwell City, said nutrients are placed a narrow band. “Cover crops, no-till, strip till is not a new thing. Ask a neighbor. Find somebody in your area. There’s got to be somebody within 15 miles of your mailbox that’s doing it successfully,” Hepp said. “Don’t make the same mistakes. Learn from them. Work together.”
Smith, the farmer from Lake Mills, said “farmers follow policy” and because federal subsidies cover crop insurance, that’s why corn and soybeans are what’s mainly grown on Iowa farms. “We drove down on I-35 today and it wasn’t voluntary to drive 70 miles an hour. It’s a requirement and if we go over that…you can have a ticket issued for that,” Smith said. “…If we want to get to the numbers that are laid out in the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, to expect meaningful drops in the levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, it’s a mathematical certainty that we will have to have something more substantial.”
The group made their comments on this weekend’s edition of “Iowa Press” on Iowa PBS. The three “Lobe Rangers” are scheduled to speak tonight at an event hosted by the Iowa Environmental Council and Des Moines Water Works.