Reporting the Truth – The Whole Truth – About Farming and Conservation

By: Laurie Johns, American Farm Bureau Federation

It was the dreaded “annual physical” time and I kept glancing at the phone, wondering if I missed the call about my results. Checked email. Nothing. After a couple days, I called my doctor, which apparently made him laugh. “No news is good news,” he said.

How funny. That old salve sure doesn’t apply to media these days, especially if they’re writing about conservation: it seems they’ve adopted the “no good news makes the news”approach, especially when it comes to conservation progress in Iowa. 

It’s nothing new. Before the Des Moines Water Works lawsuit was dismissed by a federal court, media wrote about the need to perpetually run the nitrate removal plant at Des Moines Water Works. Even though that’s not the case now, they aren’t reporting it, or even asking why. Instead, they give ink to the same old opponents of Iowa agriculture who keep pivoting, pointing their fingers at new targets: Is it corn farming? Is it livestock farming?  

One thing they haven’t hit on, is that it’s quite possible the conservation progress made by Iowa farmers in the last five years is helping to manage nutrients during times of significant weather swings. Recent monitoring shows that nitrate levels remain low, despite rain deluges all over the state, which delayed planting and continue to occur, bringing floods in some parts of the state. Des Moines Water Works apparently hasn’t had to turn on its nitrate removal system yet this year. That runs contrary to the dire consequences predicted by their executive director, just last year.


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