This past weekend was one of my favorite times as a farmer trying to connect with people, who are not close to farming. I was happy to be part of a group of farmers and local businesses that hosted the 5^th Annual Harvest Tour for bloggers!

Special thanks to the sponsors who make this possible: ABCM Corporation, the Greater Franklin County Chamber of Commerce, Franklin County Farm Bureau, Iowa Farm Bureau, Franklin County Tourism and Latham Hi‑Tech Seeds!

This tour is held the first weekend of October, which is great timing because there is so much activity here at that time of the year. Harvest is always underway, although I remember one year harvest was early and last year it was a little later. This year the timing was perfect!

Each year a different group of bloggers are invited to stay in our farming community. Those invited have little or no experience with farming and their blogs reach thousands of people, who for the most part, also have no experience with farming. Bloggers who participated this year included:

• Simply, Live, Love
• Her Heartland Soul
• Oh My Omaha
• The Gingered Whisk
• Midwest Wanderer

You can follow what they had to say on Twitter and other social media channels by searching the hashtag #FranklinCoHarvest. Most attendees are amazed by what they find on this tour, and then they share by blogging. Here’s an example:

“This was my first time spending time in a farm town and I learned so much. Life is definitely different but it is so great,” wrote Erin Child in an October 5^th post on Her Heartland Soul blog. “I met some of the friendliest people, who have so much pride in their community and I can see why. Farms are the backbone of the country and it is incredible getting to live so close to that!”

This blogger tour has been a fantastic way to explain what we do out here in North Central Iowa! We started the weekend tour on a Friday evening at the REA Museum. This was the first farmer owned, electric power plant west of the Mississippi. This building still houses one of the huge generators that first brought easy electricity to farms. Before that, some farms had only small generators and a bank of batteries to power their farms!

From the museum, we traveled a short distance for a welcome reception at the Townsend Winery. What could be better than food and wine tasting to set the mood to meet new friends?

Saturday started with coffee and breakfast at Rustic Brew, a coffee shop and brewery on Main Street in our county seat of Hampton. After breakfast, we toured the Franklin County Historical Museum. Not only does this place show a couple hundred years of farming history, it shows how life has evolved in our area. It even goes back thousands of years with artifacts dug up from prehistoric times.

Next up was time to explore downtown Hampton. Like many small towns, Hampton’s specialty shops offer unique items plus they play an important role in telling the history of our county. Everyone enjoyed either shopping or returning to the Rustic Brew for another refreshment.

After our tour of the town, we traveled to rural Franklin County for lunch of “pork and beans” at Latham Hi‑Tech Seeds. Pulled pork, pumpkin bars and Val Plagge’s “Hog Wild Baked Beans” were once again crowd pleasers.

As we ate another terrific meal, we learned farming facts from the North Central Ag in the Classroom. This is a program to share farming with our grade school kids. Even out here in the middle of farm country, we have found that kids need to hear about what happens on the farm. This organization reaches 10,000 students each year, providing classroom materials about #RealPigFarming, ethanol production and soil conservation to name a few.

The next stop of the day was the one everyone had been eagerly awaiting! Roy and Jeanie Arends farm outside Alexander gave an interesting tour of their operation. Before the combine rides began, we learned about field tile. Roy did a good job explaining what tile do and why they’re needed here. Roy and Jeanie’s son, Drew, explained GMOs and why farmers use them. Of course, the combine and tractor rides were then a huge hit as always! The amount of technology in today’s equipment always surprises everyone!

After a brief break back at the motel, we had supper, dinner to the city folk, in one of the local Mexican restaurants. This was a great time of conversation, sharing about the tour so far.

To finish the evening, we attended a live production of “An Evening Like It Used to Be” in our local historic Windsor Theatre. Local musicians and actors put on an old Vaudeville-type show that had great live music and comedy routines. It was a great way to end the day!

Sunday morning was the end of the planned activities for weekend. Bloggers enjoyed breakfast and a tour of the Leahy Grove Independent Living Center. Afterwards, they were invited to attend the annual Harriman-Nielson Fall Festival for another look at Franklin County’s Danish history.

I’m looking forward to reading what the bloggers have to share about our weekend! Search social media for #FranklinCoHarvest to follow along. In the meantime, here are links to blogs about past years’ tours that were posted on TheFieldPosition:

• Field Fare and Family Fun Abound
• Proving the Power of the Internet
• Harvest Tour is Leaning Opportunity

President Obama on Sept. 15 signed an executive order requiring government agencies “to use behavioral science insights to ‘better serve the American people.’ According to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, federal agencies have been instructed “to identify policies and operations where applying findings from behavioral science could improve ‘welfare, program outcomes, and program cost effectiveness’.”

Striving to improve government efficiency is nothing new as governments have been “nudging” people since time began. Penalties are put in place to keep you from doing what government officials believe shouldn’t be done. Taxes are used to influence our decisions, and tax breaks are given to encourage certain behaviors or actions.

Consider the breaks given for a business to locate in a certain town, a certain area or town or within a particular state. Before deciding whether to expand, relocate or change in their business, executives now factor in government programs to see which town or which state will give them the biggest breaks. Incidentally, Forbes magazine reports that Utah is the top spot for business. North Dakota comes in second; Nebraska ranks seventh; Minnesota is ninth; and Iowa ranks 12^th.

One of the biggest nudges right now is the penalties put on to our best sources of energy. “The EPA is worried about climate change and is making a huge push for clean air. Biofuels like ethanol fit so well into their plans, yet the EPA wants to reduce 2015 and 2016 blending requirements by at least 20 percent.”

Another nudge is being given to improve water quality. Believe me, I support water quality but what concerns me is how government agencies have the ability to control public perception simply by choosing which information to release and when. As I’ve written before, today’s technology can detect smaller amounts of pollution in our waters. Standards have changed, so more bodies of water than ever before make the “polluted list.” However, farmers are doing a better job of adapting conservation practices that make a positive difference in improving water quality!

Public school lunch programs scream behavioral change. “Big Brother” definitely has his hands on kids’ lunch trays, and the latest nutritional guidelines aren’t even being used for better health for the kids. Instead, federal guidelines released last spring call for a reduction in red meat consumption based on the claim that a plant-based diet reduces the carbon footprint. So… the overlying reason to change U.S. dietary guidelines is actually a political ploy to manage beef production practices that don’t even take into account what sustainable production practices are already in place by U.S. beef producers!

Right or wrong, the party in power uses laws and regulation to push their agenda, and that’s why it matters who gets elected. I realize what I’m about to say next isn’t politically correct, but we’ve got to “stop feeding the bears!” (NOTE: This blog is entirely my own opinion.) The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cost almost $80 billion in 2013, which is twice the amount it cost before President Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009.

Making Americans dependent on social programs and using taxpayer money to advertise welfare programs won’t lead to government efficiency or to a more productive society! Making it easier and easier for people to sign up for social programs is a nudge in the wrong direction!

The big buzz now is that all Americans must be treated equally, but is everyone putting forth an equal effort?! Honestly, isn’t anyone else besides me concerned about President Obama’s mandate to use “social science” to serve people?

The U.S. Government was set up with very specific powers. How have we gotten to the point where federal government controls what we eat, what we use for energy and essentially how we live? What’s happening to our individual freedoms? Every aspect of how we live is being nudged by government!

Hopefully, my blog today is a “nudge” to all voters! Americans should have equal opportunity, equal potential. Hard work and ingenuity is what made our country great, and it can make this country grow again if we let it. Government “nudges” and social equality do not work because you can’t take from workers and give to the non-workers or the will to work fades! Remember, communist regimes in Germany and Russia fell for a reason.

Enchanted Acres pumpkin patch of Sheffield, Iowa is hosting a Make-A-Wish Fall Ball on September 26, 2015 from 9am to 5pm.  A $5 per person, or $20 per carload gate fee will be given to Make-A-Wish Iowa.

“We are excited to be having a fall family event this year at Enchanted Acres,” said Val Plagge, Make-A-Wish volunteer.  “As an organization that focuses on children and families, we are always looking for ways for families to have fun and learn more about Make-A-Wish.”

The Make-A-Wish Fall Ball will include a Peter Pan and Tinkerbell Story Time, Horse Drawn Carriage Rides, Pirate Bounce Houses, Balloon Animals, Face Painting, and plenty of photo opportunities. Families can also enjoy Enchanted Acres’ features and attractions:

• Decorate a glitter pumpkin.
• Fire the corn cannon.
• Feed the giggling goats.
• Pet the rascally rabbits.
• Explore the playground. Wander through the woods.

“The Make-a-Wish Foundation believes a ‘wish experience’ can be a game-changer for a child with a life-threatening medical condition. At Enchanted Acres, we believe in helping families create magical memories of picking pumpkins and enjoying fall fun including hay rides and campfire s’mores. I couldn’t be more excited about partnering with Make-a-Wish of North Iowa to host a one-of-a-kind Fall Ball” said Shannon Latham, owner of Enchanted Acres.

A $5 per person, or $20 per carload gate fee will be given to Make-A-Wish North Iowa. Be sure to use the hashtag #FallBall15 on all of your social media posts; a person will be drawn at random for prizes from Enchanted Acres.

The world is a big place, but it’s getting smaller every year. The “worldwide web” connects us at the touch of a button. Foreign investors are buying up farmland here in the Midwest, as well as across the globe. The current U.S. election cycle has added to the noise and confusion about food and farming.

While driving hundreds of miles this past week, I couldn’t help but think of the global picture. My mind has been on the Ukraine. I keep pondering an article printed July 30^th in The Guardian entitled, “Ukraine agribusiness firms in ‘quiet land grab’ with development finance.”

The government – and politics – has a big influence in Ukraine. When I traveled there two years ago as part of the Iowa Farm Bureau’s Black Sea Study Trip, we saw how farmers were really starting to make farming work. The country and its farmers had struggled to develop infrastructure and the know-how to work independently after the Soviet Union and its collective state farms were dismantled in the 1990s. Tracts of land, in about 5-acre parcels, were distributed among the population.

Farmers found a way to put together tracts large enough to gain some efficiency of scale, and during our visit, many of them were optimistic about the future. Times change, however, and agriculture in that region seems to hit some proverbial bumps in the road due to an ongoing power struggle between Russia and the EU.

Small Ukrainian farmers have found financing very hard to come by, yet the wealthiest farmers have been able to expand their operations through loans from a branch of the World Bank known as the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Hundreds of millions of dollars have been loaned, according to that article in The Guardian, due to a mandate to help end global poverty:

“The IFC, which like all World Bank institutions has an explicit mandate to end global poverty, says its investments in MHP have created jobs and supported food security in Ukraine and beyond. Central to the IFC’s mission is a policy to ‘do no harm’ and achieve positive development outcomes by investing in the private sector.”

The article goes on to share how much of this money has been loaned to build the Ukraine’s largest chicken production and processing facility. Residents in the area are concerned about noise and water pollution, yet their concerns seem to be falling upon deaf ears.

I hope you’ll take some time to read the entire article. Then think about where we are in this country – and where we could be. Politics, and the officials in power, definitely impact lives. Whom we elect makes a difference. Do America a favor and be sure you know how each candidate stands on positions of interest to you!

Posts Related to Ukraine:

• Learning About Ag from Half a World Away
• Farmers Markets Open 24/5 in Ukraine
• How Eastern Europe’s Farm Measure Up

As I was reading the Sunday paper – without bothering first to find my reading glasses – I was a little startled by what I read. Then I found my glasses, read the article once again and realized that my eyes weren’t deceiving me. The article was startling!

This experienced reminded me about some people’s perceptions about farming. I’m often startled when a non-farmer looks at me and starts a conversation by saying, “I hear…”

Some non-farmers believe they can solve every “perceived” problem we have in agriculture without any experience in the day-to-day operations of farms. They hear we don’t need to use any chemicals, and most of them don’t give any thought as to why chemicals are used. They hear GMOs are bad, so they tell us we shouldn’t plant them. These same folks often don’t know there aren’t any nutritional differences between conventionally and organically raised foods. They also don’t know the huge benefits genetically modified insulin has for diabetics.

It seems these days many people are just interested in fighting for a cause: calling for reduced use of farm chemicals to preserve water quality; advocating for a plant-based diet; or supporting organic production to save humanity. (NOTE: No human deaths have been caused by GMOs, but millions of people die unnecessarily each year because Golden Rice has been stalled by GMO opponents.)

Another cause-related issue that’s making recent headlines is a partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) to provide “transitioning service members with agricultural training.” The USDA always seems to find money for feel-good programs like its Food for Progress Program that helps foreign farmers expand their operations. Meanwhile, the DOD can’t seem to ever find funding. Sounds like a beautiful match, right?

This joint effort is aimed at service people returning to civilian life. With most government programs, it’s so tough to jump through all the hoops to meet the requirements. An article published yesterday by Agri-Pulse states:

“According to the USDA, this initiative will ensure the estimated 200,000 service members who complete the Transition Assistance Program annually have access to USDA programs ranging from farm loans to conservation programs to nutrition assistance to rural rental housing and homeownership opportunities.”

I feel better just reading that! (Insert sarcasm here.) Don’t you? But wait… do any of these servicemen or women know anything about farming? I’m not saying that a person who didn’t grow up on a farm can’t farm, but I am saying it will be tougher for him or her. The article states, “members leave the military with a variety of essential skills – including leadership and discipline – that could be directly applied to a career in agriculture.” If only that’s all it took!

Further down the article, it reads that the USDA gave 6,500 veterans $438 million in farm loans. That sounds like a huge amount of money until you take into consideration that money was over a 6-year period. According to my math, about one half of one percent of the 200,000 veterans are eligible each year for this program! Each farmer in this program, on average, received $67,384. That’s not much money to buy a farm of any size or even make improvements to existing buildings. That amount could buy one nice, used tractor.

The farm program was cut by The Sequester program, yet the USDA is creating new programs. Billions and billions of dollars’ worth of programs! They don’t have a clue where it all goes, but I’m sure it makes them feel good giving it away. The question is, “How much good are these programs really doing?”

Maybe I’m not reading this right. Maybe I’m just grouchy. Or maybe, just maybe, that $438 million would be better spent on the more serious health and mental problems many of returning military members face.