Saturday Afternoon Football
January 27, 2023 - Listening to the Iowa State v. Kansas Basketball Game
Loyalty to Iowa State runs deep in the Harris family. Lyle and Delma Harris have three sons all of whom attended Iowa State University. My in-laws, nieces, nephews and cousins are wildly proud of the Cyclone sports teams. The paraphernalia includes license plates, clothing, mugs, afghans, flags, Christmas ornaments, jewelry - you name it, someone in the family probably has one or several.
Heck, Delma, Larry’s mom had the inklings of a heart attack in the middle of the night in the late 90s, but didn’t want to miss a football game the next day so she delayed getting to the emergency room. Many of the males in the extended Harris family were/are members of the famous Farmhouse Fraternity that was established in 1927. Our nephew was the national director of Farmhouse for a number of years. Other Harris’ have taught at ISU.
To this day, like other ISU families, the sports teams are held dear to the Harris family even when they have a losing season. Drive into our farmyard on a Saturday afternoon in the fall and you may think the football game is next door. There is a radio blasting from every corner of the farm. The barn, the greenhouse and the high tunnel have bluetooth speakers, rechargeable radios or there is the option of listening to the game blaring at high volume from the pick up truck parked close by.
I dislike the game of football - it’s too hard on bodies and it’s just plain weird to see boys and men in skin tight spandex crashing into each other, hurting each other to capture a 12” ball. Yuck. I tolerate listening to the games and often engage in conversation with Larry and my kids throughout the game. I thoroughly enjoy the sports talk that bonds our three adult children and their father. I listen to their conversations when Larry puts them on speaker to critique the games. The fact remains, I do not like football.
Basketball is my game. The radios broadcast from kitchen, the barn and the strawbale house under construction during the winter. We also listen when we are in the car or truck. Rarely do we watch a game on television. The play by play commentary on the radio is more intimate and rich with metaphors. Sportscasters are like family members building momentum to a fevered pitch. Their excitement, joy and disappointment reflect our feelings. Interviews during the aftergame show brings a closeness, a “we are in this together and aren’t we proud,” moment.
The downside to the Saturday afternoon listening to football and basketball games is the insidious advertising that assaults us from the radio waves. Iowa Farm Bureau and the Iowa industrial agri-business complex have convinced Iowans to sacrifice our health so corporate CEOs can siphon off huge salaries. According to Art Cullen - Iowans are being killed off by the micro-dosing of dangerous chemicals.
The marketing strategy the pro factory farm industry uses is full of propaganda and half truths. “Farmers feed the world!” “Farmers are the best environmentalists!” “Iowa doesn’t grow corn. Corn grows Iowa”
Expensive advertising during ball games shields listeners from the truth about the undrinkable water, the poisoned soil or the lack of biodiversity in our state. Iowa has the most altered landscape in our country and we continue to bring marginal land into production.
Agricultural groups share the commercial time and they all deliver the same message “Iowa Farmers are our heroes.” The truth is agri-business practices are making us sick. Yes, Iowa farmers could be heroes if they are allowed to do the right thing. Corporate driven policy makes it difficult. Many farmers have become tractor drivers and caretakers of livestock. The factory farm system has relegated once independent farmers to factory style jobs.
Iowa will never change as long as the thousands of sports minded radio listeners are lulled into thinking that industrial agri-business is good for Iowa. As long as the land is viewed as a commodity, something to be used up, to own and strip it of its life - Iowans are the big time losers.
Just as the Amazon has a slash and burn policy to produce more beef, corn and beans, so has Iowa. Last week I drove east of our farm and saw huge piles of trees and brush in neat stacks where a fence and tree line once grew. These piles will be burned when the wind is calm and there is no danger for wildfires; that might be a long time in coming due to current drought conditions. My heart breaks to see such destruction in the neighborhood where I live. Many wonder why our bird and wild animal populations are declining. Hunters wonder where the pheasant and quail have gone. Where do you see habitat in these pictures?
Contrary to what you might think, I don’t hate farmers. I hate agri-businesses plunder of the land and what Iowa farming has become. The neighbor that has denuded the landscape is a nice man. He rescued Larry from a snowdrift after the blizzard last week. He plants cover crops. He is a good community minded individual. The problem is that he has bought into the corporate monolog that Iowa feeds the world. He is smart and should know when he is being used, but he and others have fallen big time and are caught in a scheme that doesn’t have his nor the lands best interest in mind.
The world will soon be coming to life as we head into spring. Birds, those that haven’t been robbed of their habitat, will return to sing the praises of warmer weather. The peepers, frogs and toads that have survived polluted water, will be croaking and chirping as they come out of hibernation.
This is the time to prepare and plant seeds to grow the corn that perpetuates the myth that farmers feed the world. New technology makes it possible to plant earlier every season. A coating on the corn kernel protects it from freezing in cold temperatures. Bio technology protects the seed from pests. Everything is engineered to grow the biggest crop yield ever. The ads during the football and basketball games talk about finding markets for the oversupply of corn. How about growing less corn? How about protecting the land so rain events can’t wash away the soil?
5% of Iowans are farmers. Ninety five percent of us are are held hostage to the the corporate structure that serves this minority. Why? Because the Iowa Farm Bureau Insurance Company benefits from the policies they create that pollute our water and destroy our land all the while paying lip service about protecting Iowa farmers.
Just as Republicans fear the repercussions of opposing Trump, a felon, liar, rapist…. Iowa legislators of both parties appear to be afraid of the insurance company posing as a farm organization. It is a wolf in sheep's clothing. They claim they are helping 153,000 family members; when will those members realize they are being sacrificed for agri-business profit?
Iowa State University also takes a knee for the insurance company. The corporate funded research has contributed to the poisoning of Iowa. It hurts me to say this because I know many, many good people at the university but their hands are tied.
They have sold their souls to the company store as in the ballad, Sixteen Tons that Tennessee Ernie Ford made famous. “Another day older and deeper in debt”
When I decided to run for Secretary of Agriculture in 2005, I called a friend of mine and told her my plan. “I want to take on the Farm Bureau,” I said. She wished me luck, gave me encouragement, but I know she had her doubts.
I was ahead of my opponent leading up to the election. My campaign was about local and regional food systems, producing biofuels on our farms and bringing diversity back to Iowa. I nearly won but was sabotaged by lies and innuendos in the last 72 hours. My threat to the Farm Bureau and agri-industry was as an organic farmer, not as a woman; former Secretary of Ag Patty Judge had broken that barrier.
It will be a huge task to counter the image of Iowa as a place to grow corn. We need to have millions of dollars to advertise what good farming practices can do for Iowa. I am not a marketing person but someone could take ideas like these and create some great ads.
Look at that green field in January - good farming practices help stop wind from soil blowing away and promote the use of less synthetic fertilizers and captures carbon.
Congratulations to Iowa’s farmers who care about the future of the state of Iowa.
Iowa farmers can grow food to feed Iowans - thank you Iowa fruit and vegetable farmers for feeding Iowans
Congratulations to Iowa farmers for planting trees and prairie along our rivers and streams - preserving farmland for the future.
Iowa’s water has been cleaned up by the hard work of farmers who care about the land.
There are successful Iowa farmers that do not grow corn and beans. If they do, these commodity crops are used in a crop rotation system that builds soil - why not celebrate them?
If there was a major ad campaign that honors the regenerative and organic farmers you can be guaranteed there would be an attempt to co-opt that effort. Clever techniques portray families out on the land in pastoral settings would capture the eyes and ears of listeners to continue the myth that farming is a harmless occupation.
I know our non-farmer allies, organizations and individuals - are working hard for a healthy, clean Iowa and making changes as they can. My concern is that it is not enough, soon enough. Iowa has been dying since the colonizers swept in and settled this state. When will Iowa become alive again? When will people realize that Iowa will be a desert some day? No one wants to believe that is possible.
Most people know me as a positive, optimistic person. I don’t like being a doomsayer but in my fifty years of farming Iowa land, I have witnessed too much destruction. There are wonderful people caring for and loving the land. We need urban allies to fight with us to bring back diversity and health to our rural countryside.
Larry and I have received recognition for our farming practices as have many other farmers throughout Iowa. There just aren’t enough of us to make change. So many times people say “Oh that type of farming is okay for so and so, but if everybody did that we would starve.” The opposite is true - Iowa tractor drivers do not feed the world. Period. They grow corn for the corporate bosses whose salaries are outrageous. The tractor driver and livestock janitor would probably like to have half of what the CEO makes.
My vision for Iowa’s future includes safe drinking water, healthy soil and a population that can thrive in a clean environment.
https://riverraccoon.substack.com/?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web&r=accxi
https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2024/01/22/america-needs-farmers-just-not-their-politics/
Hear! Hear!
💜 YES! Make Iowa a place we can come back to! Back to a living, breathing, healthy Iowa!