Why dig this hole even deeper?

I recently watched an interview with the former governor of Iowa and former Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. A number of things he said annoyed me, but one subject he talked about really ticked me off. The subject was bio-digestors. Bio-digestors are being touted as a sustainable solution for reducing the release of climate change gases, as well as a sustainable way to help farmers. I and others know tax subsidized bio-digestors will do neither.

Currently, most manure is handled in liquid form under anaerobic conditions and under these conditions produces gases, often called biogas. This biogas is mainly methane. Bio-digestors are used to capture the methane released from liquid manure and burn it to produce electricity or heat. Historically manure was collected and spread while in a mostly solid state. It mixed with air, allowing the manure to break down without producing large quantities of methane or other greenhouse gases. While the bio-digestors may put methane to good use, the pollutants remain. After extracting the gas, the nitrates and phosphorous are still there and will still pollute our waterways.

While Vilsack was the Secretary of Agriculture, he championed subsidizing bio-digestors with tax payer money, just as he backed ethanol subsidies and the CO2 capture pipeline. Now. as current CEO of the World Food Prize Foundation, he is promoting these so-called “solutions” worldwide.

The subsidies for bio-digestors are bad in the same ways the subsidies for CO2 pipelines are bad. Both of these programs take tax payer money and pay the polluters. Why would farmers try to reduce the pollution from manure when they know more manure means more money? Why would ethanol plants reduce their production of greenhouse gases when producing the greenhouse gases makes them more money? There is also the fact that USDA programs often benefit the biggest farmers and leave the small and middle-sized farms fighting to eke out a living. Bio-digestors require a sizable capital investment along with plenty of manure to make it worth it, thus being only beneficial to the largest livestock producers.

Vilsack has not, and is not, using his position of power to help Iowa become a better place. While a state senator in Iowa he voted to take away local governments’ ability to stop Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, CAFOs, from being constructed in their communities. His decisions as governor put no policies in place to help solve our polluted water problem. His power as Secretary of Agriculture has promoted programs advancing tax subsidized pollution while predominately giving advantages to the largest producers. I implore Vilsack to stop and think about the ramifications of the programs he is promoting as sustainable solutions. Please, can’t we all at least deicide to stop digging this hole of unsustainable food production and start implementing real solutions?

Kim Hagemann is a member of Iowa CCI Action and retired after over 30 years in the agriculture industry. She lives in Polk City.