Wally Taylor is the Legal Chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter.
A recent study issued by Decision Innovation Solutions, a pro-Big Ag consulting firm in Des Moines, claims that Iowa’s farm economy is in dire straits because Iowa farmers are growing too much corn. Too much corn, according to the report, is creating a “demand gap.” In other words, corn growers are harvesting more corn that can be sold.
The report’s solution to this situation is year-round sale of E-15 (gasoline with 15 percent ethanol content), corn-based marine fuel, and corn-based aviation fuel. It should come as no surprise that the Iowa Corn Growers Association and the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association commissioned this study.
More specifically, the solutions to the demand gap for corn proposed in the report are:
1. Congressional approval of nation-wide year-round E-15. The report calls for a “loud, strong message” to Congress supporting E-15. This will supposedly “spur the fuel refineries, blenders, and distributors to quickly adopt E-15.”
2. Reinstatement of the 45Z tax credit for ethanol and sustainable aviation fuel. The Big Ugly Bill that Congress passed in 2025 reduced the credit.
3. Carbon capture and sequestration. Anyone in Iowa who has been paying attention knows what this means. A massive pipeline project destroying farmland, endangering people and communities, and sucking up large quantities of groundwater.
4. Conservation smart agriculture. This means the conservation practices that we have encouraged farmers to use, e.g., buffer strips, cover crops, grass waterways, etc. This report contends that federal agencies should finalize rules for the 45Z tax credit to recognize conservation smart agriculture as qualifying for the credit. The report claims that the tax credit has not been applied because of “pressure from anti-farmer groups” (Sierra Club?).
It apparently did not occur to the authors of the report that the demand gap could be addressed by farmers growing less corn. Farmers could grow crops that the market really wants. More to the point, farmers could grow crops that people actually eat. Farmers could still grow corn to feed livestock. But when over half of the corn grown in Iowa is used for ethanol, the corn crop could be reduced by over half and still have enough to feed livestock.
This report conveniently ignores what I consider a major issue. Growing too much corn leads to impaired water quality. Corn needs fertilizer more than any other crop. The more corn that is grown, the more fertilizer is used, and the more nutrients run off into our rivers and streams.
Perhaps Iowa’s farmers should heed the advice of 19th Century Populist firebrand Mary Elizabeth Lease, to “raise less corn and more hell.”