Visit On An Iowa Farm

Visit on An Iowa Farm
By Dr. Dennis Ginoza October 8, 2009

I heard it said: “My grandfather owned a farm, my father had a garden, I have a can opener.” This is telling of our times.

My father was a gardener. He raised the best string beans. In his two gardens, he planted carrots, broccoli, cabbage, sweet potatoes, eggplant, pumpkins, beets, and of course, string beans. All the preparation was done by hand with picks, shovels, rakes and hoes. He fertilized the soil with chicken manure from hens that provided eggs.. We three sons helped him haul the horse manure from the nearby stables. In retrospect, he was a superb gardener realizing the necessity to feed his family living in a village along the hills of West Maui. As my professor in seminary who was an agriculture missionary in Africa would remind us, raising food in many world regions is labor intensive.

In the early 60’s, traveling through the Mid-West, a common site was small family farms, many just a mile or three apart. As one traveled the rural roads, you could see a barn, a silo, and cattle feeding in fenced in areas or larger pasture lands. The cattle were for marketing or cows raised for milk and its related products. The farm equipment such as tractors had open seats, for the most part, and in time, one would see the progression to closed cabs.


A recollection I have is when my father-in-law wanted some eight track tapes with Hawaiian music so he could listen to it as he worked the fields. Lightly, with a chuckle, I thought, farming is not so hard anymore; it’s mixed with leisure and comfort. Iowa, where I spent time, was a changing farm scene. And that brings me to this present day.

A few days ago, I stepped into a new era in farming. For me, this was a giant step as we live in a day where milk comes in a carton or plastic container, beef and chicken soups sit on shelves in the supermarket, fresh meat are displayed in giant cooling systems, and fresh vegetables and fruits are neatly laid out in racks for easy reach and purchase. Do we have any idea how farming has changed. Most of us have no idea.

The back drop of this day also is an earlier experience I had in Costa Rica as a Peace Corps volunteer. Earlier in Puerto Rico, then in Central America, I learned about the slash and burn system. Farmers used their corn seeds from the harvested crop for re-planting, then the field was slashed and cleared, and burned. Then the corn seeds were planted in an opening in the soil made with a tool, lucky if it was enriched with fertilizer.

Interestingly, the Iowa seed corn was introduced to the farmers by the development association I was working with. The new seed corn was not accepted easily for various reasons. Funny as it may sound, the farmers and their families did not like the color of the new seed corn. It was too light, not the deep yellow they were used to for their tortillas. Change, as we know, doesn’t come easily. What made the hybrid corn less appealing: every planting required new seeds to be bought. This was a start to make farming capital intensive, not labor intensive. Farmers didn’t have financial resources to easily make the change. As my seminary professor reminded us, this is the gap between third world farming and farming in the developed world.

Now, my day on an Iowa farm. I was invited to visit my brother’s-in-law farm. First his son Jason drove me to the site where huge, towering bins are built for storage, a dryer system that is computerized to test moisture and proper drying, a drop pit where semis unload the harvested corn, then the grain would be taken in underground plumbed lines to begin the drying and storing process. While one semi was unloading, another semi would be driven to the field to receive the additional loads for the process just described. Instructive and interesting—was my thinking.

As I sat in the combine with my brother-in-law, Bob Schager, I witnessed the wonder of modern farming. This was far from the days when a horse pulled a plow with a farmer guiding it down the rows for cultivation and far from picking corn by hand. The intensity of the work did not line a sweaty brow in the heat of the sun. If there was a sweat on the brow, the cause would be a bad weather day or declining market prices.

For two hours, I sat in a cab watching the harvesting of a large field of corn with more fields waiting beyond what my sight could see. As the combine moved, cutting and processing twelve rows of corn at a time, a computer screen displayed the moisture, 20% or 27%, and as I learned, that computer also had a GPS mapping system (Global Positioning System with information fed from orbiting satellites), which, would create a mapping memory. This memory would make possible an auto pilot system.

As the combine worked, Bob explained to me that the combine had three sensors which helped determine the level of the terrain so the chopping followed the ups and downs of the soil. Had the GPS system been working, the combine would have been on automatic pilot. This would have given him time to check other systems in the computer data for both the efficiency of the operation and the data collecting system, and whatever else it is designed to do. In another ride, I could tell you more.

As the combine was working, another piece of equipment, the grain cart (augur wagon) was driven parallel to the combine at a calculated speed and a workable distance from the combine. When the combine was about full, not missing a moment, hardly, the corn seeds would be transferred into the grain truck. All this was in a synchronized movement. The grain cart had in it, a computer system recording the weight of every load, data necessary for federal reporting. I could see in mind’s eye, two jets in flight, one a tanker refueling the other in mid-air with no time lost or stoppage of whatever was the required task. This, I saw happening in the corn field.

As I watched the grain cart, after it got its full load, it headed toward the waiting semi which would haul its load to the dumping pit by the waiting bins as described earlier.

What I witnessed in two hours was a giant step in farming. As I could see, it is designed for efficiency and productivity. This was not observed, but clearly this type of farming requires a well trained, clearly defined role of players making possible a harvesting system covering a larger farm, unlike the small farms I saw in the early 60’s.

Farming, from this limited explanation, clearly has changed. This change fits our time as manufacturing, production, labor forces, capital investments, agri-business and its management have global implications. Technology, as I have seen, makes possible new ways of putting food on our table. It is different and far from the day when the beans and carrots came from the soil just a few feet away from our dinner table.

Yes, I have a can opener, but more importantly, a new and fascinating understanding of an Iowa farm. Such was my day from the seat of a combine. The farm is the same, but the landscape of planting and harvesting is not.

One final thought: When I sit at the table and have my dish filled with fresh vegetables, a piece of meat, a baked potato, or a bowl of hot soup, I will remain thankful for the soil from which the harvest has come. Our link to the soil, to the falling rain, to the rich elements and to the working hand has not changed.