Iowa, Mississippi farmers realize they are alike in many ways
By Jean Caspers-Simmet
simmet@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 07/29/2010 9:43 AM
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RADCLIFFE, Iowa —Dan Branton, who lives in Leland, Miss., said his trip to Iowa with the Iowa-Mississippi Farmer to Farmer Exchange was great.
He raises 3,000 acres of corn and soybeans and also raises catfish. His land is flat, which made central Iowa cropland with very gentle rises appear rolling.
"We're talking about issues with drainage and flood control and hypoxia in the Gulf," Branton said of the exchange. "We're seeing if we can work it out so that regulations don't break us."
Bowen Flowers farms 16,000 acres with his extended family in Clarksdale, Miss. They grow cotton, soybeans, corn, rice and wheat.
Flowers said Iowa and Mississippi farmers have similar problems and are trying to find solutions.
"Farmers everywhere in the country are trying to make a living on the farm and take care of the land," Flowers said. "The American people don't understand what conservationists and environmentalists farmers are. The land is our livelihood. We want to pass it on to the next generation."
Flowers said it's been interesting to learn about the tile drainage used in Iowa fields.
"We're in a drought at home," Flowers said. "I'm pumping water out of the ground on to my fields, and you're trying to get it off the crop and back in to the ground."
Flowers learned that Iowa soils are porous and nitrate leaches into tile water. Mississippi farmers have to protect the water coming off the surface of fields that flows into streams and tributaries of the Mississippi. They hold water back by building control structures that slow, retain and clean the water.
Flowers said he was impressed with the research under way at Iowa State University.
"I hope we can get together and figure out the cheapest and best way for the farmer to implement practices that start solving the hypoxia problem," Flowers said.
Mike Lamensdorf of Rolling Rock, Miss., farms and publishes several southern row crop publications. He raises 2,600 acres of skip-row cotton, 4,000 acres of soybeans, 1,400 acres of corn and 396 acres of irrigated pecan trees. His sandy loam along Deer Creek has just enough clay for water holding capacity.
"It's some of the finest dirt in the world," he said.
His family owns a cotton gin, which they use for their cotton and also do some ginning for the public.
The farmers work with Delta Council, a lobbying group that represents the Mississippi Delta, an area in northwest Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. It's known for its rich flat farmland. Delta Council speaks with a unified voice on issues related to agriculture as well as transportation, education and health care, Lamensdorf said.
Trey Cooke, executive director of Delta Farmers Advocating Resource Management, a Delta Council partner, works with farmers on water quality, soil conservation, solid waste disposal and wildlife habitat improvements.
"We talk about an economically and environmentally sustainable future for agriculture," Cooke said.