Iowa Sec. of Agriculture election 2006

To all Iowans eligible to vote on Nov. 7, 2006:

Please vote for Bill Northey for Secretary of Agriculture on Tuesday.

For all other positions, vote as you must (personally I’ll be voting for mostly Democrats), but definitely vote for Bill Northey (who happens to be the Republican) for Secretary of Agriculture.

If you’re considering voting for Denise O’Brien (the Democrat) for the Secretary of Agriculture position, please re-consider voting for Bill Northey instead.  Here’s why:

Education:

Denise O’Brien has a high school diploma.  Bill Northey has a bachelor’s degree in Agribusiness from ISU and an MBA.

Farm Experience:

Bill is a 4^th generation family farmer from   He’s raised corn, soybeans, alfalfa, hogs, and cattle.  Denise has 15 acres on which she grows berries.  She also used to have some cattle.  She claims to be an organic farmer, but she’s technically not certified organic.

Leadership Experience:

Bill Northey was the president of the National Corn Growers Association.  “He served as Vice President, as Chairman of the Government Relations Committee, the Market Development Committee and the Ethanol Sub-Committee” (from his website).

Bill is also a Soil and Water Conservation Commissioner.  Denise has been a leader in the WFAN, which has fewer than 50 members nationwide.

Ethics:

In 1987 Denise’s husband, who she’s been farming with for 30 years according to her, was charged with animal cruelty for how they treated their cattle.  They starved several of their cows to death.  They had to pay a fine including a donation to an animal shelter.  Denise claims she was away and didn’t know that it was happening.  I know some cattle farmers and there’s no way they wouldn’t notice their cows starving to death for months before finally dying.  The organization she said she was working for while away, the WFAN, wasn’t even founded for seven years after the incident.  She also said there was a bridge out and they couldn’t get to the cows.  First, she only has 15 acres, plus the people that owned the land that the cows were on claim that there never was any such bridge.  Another excuse was that there was a draught that year.  However any farmer could tell you that the draught was in 1988, not 1987.

Priorities:

Bill’s top priority is renewable fuels, including ethanol, bio-diesel, and wind.  Bill wants to develop the renewable fuels industry to create more markets for farmers and more jobs for Iowans.  Denise’s top priority is diversifying the crops grown in .  She’s a self described radical whose vision for agriculture is to return to a pre-1920’s era where everyone had 5-10 acres of fruits and vegetables and raised free-range chickens. 

Common Sense:

Denise says she wants to push for “local control”.  However, the Secretary of Agriculture has no power to change this.  It’s up to the legislature.  Feel free to investigate the whole “Local control” issue yourself, since I’m no expert, but it does seem that it would complicate ’s agriculture, which is very important to our economy.  It also seems like it would make things difficult for farmers, especially those that have farmland that crosses county boundaries, since all the rules could change when a new county commissioner takes office (not to mention that the rules all across the state could end up varying drastically and would end up increasing the cost of farming).

Denise says we should diversify our crops in .  But the reason we grow corn and soybeans in such great quantities in is because this is a great place to grow them.  Because we can grow so much of it we can export it and feed people all around the world.  We then import the foods we don’t grow as well here.  This is the whole point of civilization and why cities originally formed.  The people that are the best at a specific thing focus on that thing and get even better at it and then trade with others.  Eventually we get bakers, blacksmiths, doctors, farmers, etc.  If everyone had to do everything for themselves we would throw away tens of thousands of years of advancement in human civilization.

It turns out that if we didn’t grow the quantities of the crops as we do in , millions of people around the world could starve.

The media:

The editors of the Des Moines Register appear to have a very anti-Republican agenda.  Since I’m a Democrat, you would think this wouldn’t offend me so much.  The Register has published many letters to the editor (10 so far) in favor of Denise and not a single one in favor of Bill.  I personally know of several people that have written letters in favor of Bill, including myself.  Several of the editors have also written columns in favor of Denise, even though they admit their ignorance about agriculture, which most any Iowan would instantly notice upon reading one of the articles.

Even with all of this bias, the Register as a whole has endorsed Bill Northey since he is simply undeniably the better candidate and will help us grow our renewable fuels infrastructure in this critical time.

If you would like to discuss any of these points, and you know me, please call me.
Thanks.