My mind is a muddle as I sit to write this morning. I have been hesitant to start a substack column. How do I share my life as an organic farmer in the state of Iowa, the capitol of assembly-line mining; the sacrifice area for corporations to extract the natural resources for the profit of a few? What happens to the land in Iowa is not farming, it’s extracting valuable resources at a high cost to the land and the people. On the one hand it has been an exciting life, seriously. On the other, it has been difficult defending our precious earth. The daily destruction of the prairie that formed 110,000 years ago is heartbreaking.
In 1975 I met Larry Harris in Irve’s Elbow Room, a local tavern, on a hot August night. I had just moved back to Iowa from the mountains of Vermont to care for my ailing mother. We were married six months later.
Fast forward forty eight years, and I do mean fast forward, I am a seventy something woman sitting at my computer relating my life to the world. I shouldn’t be so bold as to think the the world is interested, but we have led an extraordinary life and want to encourage others to live life to it fullest.
Larry grew up on this farm. We named it Rolling Acres early in our farming partnership. Both of us attended college in the 70s, but neither of us finished with a formal degree. A life of exploring got in the way. I had lived in Japan as a senior in high school then lived on the both coasts until returning to Iowa that fateful summer. Larry lived in Colorado and worked in an underground molybdenum mine near Leadville. That experience convinced him return to his roots - the farm his mother and father established in 1949.
We lived through a turbulent time when the Vietnam War was in it’s final stages, Earth Day was established and hippies were moving back to the land. Both of us were impacted by the political upheavals and we were both drawn to the land. Our lives as organic farmer activists propelled us to the world stage during the Farm Crisis of the 1980s. We chose to enter that world - Larry was the grounded, home based activist taking care of the farm and the kids. I became the activist who traveled the state and eventually the world, always returning to the land and love that kept me sane.
Rolling Acres Farm has provided us the opportunity to raise three children who are now raising their own families. The Harris O’Brien partnership has been privileged to be a landed people though the history of our ancestors may include genocide and slavery. Our dream has been to steward the land in a gentle way to pay it forward for future generations. Our worst nightmare is that the prairie will become a desert as the unrestrained domination of our earth continues.
“The Farm” is an oasis in a sea of industrialized, factory style exploitation of the land, the air and the water; capitalism at its worst. We often wonder when people will wake up and realize that it is not our neighbor farmers who have caused this problem, it is the corporations that have consolidated power and don’t have to own the land - they own the people. Iowans are the victims of manipulation of the natural environment that has put our lives at risk. Just look at the high rates of cancer and other hormone related diseases there are in this state.
Today we live on seventeen acres of the original Harris farmstead. We are in the final stages of building a straw bale house with solar panels generating our electricity; the house of our dreams, the capstone to a life well lived. Our lifestyle is the envy of many people and every day we are grateful for our lives on this land. We have been environmental activists hoping to influence our community to preserve our Iowa rather than destroy it.
Thanks for speaking out against the curse of our beautiful state, industrial ag! I still wish you had become our sec of ag when you ran!
“It is the corporations that have consolidated power and don’t have to own the land - they own the people.” You have taught so many of us about this in the few years I’ve known you and you have given me a whole new understanding of our state. It’s like I could only see a piece of it before and now I have a more complete view. Thank you for sharing your gift.